Certified Professional in Talent Development– CPTD Preparation

Thank you for stopping by to go through my CPTD Journey!

I started with a goal for 2021 which was to appear and get certified for CPTD certification.

Initial aim was to look at Sep-Oct for giving the exam.

Early Days in 2021!

Researching for the certification and the materials required to start preparation, the first thing I did was renewing my ATD Membership.

After membership, you then head to the ATD Certification Portal to understand on the APTD / CPTD certification requirements.

Note: Membership helps in reduced cost of certification and also offers discounted prices on TDBOK (Talent Development Body of Knowledge) that you would need to read for your certification.

CPTD Study Groups

I started planning for CPTD in early January 2021 by registering for a study group from ATD AnnArbor chapter.

The study group have a perspective of group study where all the participants were divided into groups and after an initial presentation by speakers on chapters, were sent to breakout to discuss their experiences and learning’s from the topics.

This approach started of good but always needed someone to actually go through the chapter properly and come back with proper understanding and insights.

A few of us were accommodated in other breakouts / groups after we had dropout’s owing to different priorities.

Since starting for preparation, I had a study buddy right from start, Niranjan from Mumbai in India, he is currently working as DGM Learning and had always been helpful.

Both of us later joined another study group with Rocky Mountain chapter of ATD.

The approach here was different and something I would definitely recommend to all those who are planning to form study groups.

We had already certified CPTD / APTD holders come in to share their experiences to start the study group session with.

Post this, we had participants in the study group prepare on topics and in an innovative way share knowledge and have mock tests / questions oriented discussions.

This really added value and got us tuned for what kind of certification are we preparing for.

My Preparation

I started with reading through chapters and looking at the study plan published by ATD as a guiding document.

This document outlines few sections of the topics under each domain that would be in the syllabus.

Nevertheless, I would recommend that you study through all sections and chapters to gain understanding of the topics.

Ideal time that you would require to go through is 12 weeks as prescribed and followed by most study groups.

This is very much required as, there would be linkages to topics in a particular in syllabus chapter to another chapter or section which might not be covered.

This time could be used to read through the topics and all sections.

Do make notes of what you find useful and if possible and time permitting, prepare examples from the topics which you may have experienced, real-time in your professional life.

The only document / book that you need to study / go through is the Talent Development Book of Knowledge (TDBOK).

Just focus on this one document and the sample questions that give you a fair understanding of the testing pattern.

What are you tested on?

ATD certification tests you on application and not your knowledge of the theories and their details.

ATD treats us as experienced adult learner’s and wants to understand how we would have dealt as a Talent Development Professional while attempting.

Final month of preparation

Niranjan (my study buddy) and another colleague of mine, Vijay, were of immense help and gave good guidance here.

I started with reading through TDBOK and one thing I did different being someone with lot of sounds and disturbances around, switched onto the audio TDBOK book as well.

So when I was reading through the book, the same was being spoken by the reader which helped immensely.

As the date started getting closer, I took the sample test on ATD certification portal to understand how was my preparation, I took this sample exam every week to gauge myself.

Coming to the last few days of certification preparation before the exam:

I bookmarked the sections that were in the syllabus. I had completed one round of reading through the TDBOK and now wanted to focus on specifics.

So the last few days before the certification exam (D-day), this was the plan I followed:

D-4 days: I read through Domain Three (Organizational Capability) & Domain One (Personal Capability)

D-3 days: Domain Two (Professional Capability) was in the reading list today

D-2 days: Domain Three & Two fast reading ( I did tweak the fast reading along with fast voiceover of TDBOK book reader app) so that I could read and listen which helped me

D-1 day: Domain Two fast reading and review of sample tests that I have taken, I paid special attention to the mistakes I made and the explanations given

D Day: My exam was at 1400 hrs on 16 Dec so I had the morning to revise, I used this time to read through the Talent Capability Key Points that I could receive in one of our study groups which summarised all key elements.

While giving the exam!

Be peaceful and composed, this helps a lot.

You can either opt for Pearson venue or Remote Proctoring (I choose Remote Proctoring).

Ensure your desk is clean and nothing in your hands reach for the duration.

You will be tested on how you as a Talent Development professional would answer and not as an individual with text book knowledge, so please keep this in mind.

There will be 90 MCQ’s to answer, you would receive 1.15 hrs for this and you will have an option to flag a question in doubt and get back to it again towards the end.

There will be approx. 32-34 Case Management Questions, these would be in sets of 3-4 questions linked to one case scenario (each of these questions will be based on the right choice of the previous question so be careful while answering them.

There is negative marking for Case Questions. No review possible as the previous question answer cannot be changed.

In this post, I have shared my experiences and how did I approach the certification. I will be writing a few more over coming days on what topics / aspects did I study which helped me in the certification.

You can share your thoughts/ further suggestions on taking the certification/ any questions in the comments here and do share the post 🙏🏻

If you would like to connect, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or on Twitter.