Let me just be completely honest with you because I think project managers dealing with this certification struggle deserve a real conversation rather than the usual dismissive response. When a driven and experienced professional searches something very significant has brought them to that moment and understanding what that matters far more than judging the search itself. In my experience it almost always comes down to one thing - a genuinely capable project manager who has simply run out of runway and needs a fundamentally different kind of support than anything they have had access to until now.
The PMP exam journey is unlike almost any other professional certification experience out there and the demands it places on working project managers are truly extraordinary. You need thousands of verified hours of project management experience just to qualify, a formal application process that takes real time and effort, and then months of intensive preparation for an exam that tests your ability to think through complex scenario based questions under significant time pressure. All of that while your actual job continues to demand everything you have every single day and your personal life doesn't pause to give you breathing room