Talent Management Practitioner

Structure & Nature of a Typical TMP^™ Exam

A typical TMP^™ exam test–paper includes 60 questions – a mix of TWO types.

TYPE A - GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF CONCEPTS
Questions directly test the examinees' ability to correctly and precisely recollect concepts, principles, techniques, and generally accepted practices in contemporary Talent Management. The answers to TYPE A questions will reflect examinees' awareness and comprehension of critical Talent Management concepts, elements and issues as enshrined in the TMI body of knowledge. TYPE A Questions would be facts–based with answer–options being clear statements – either clearly correct, or incorrect. There is only one CORRECT answer to TYPE A questions, and examinees are scored only if the correct options are selected/ checked.

TYPE B - ABILITY TO APPLY UNDERSTANDING & KNOWLEDGE
Questions directly test the examinees' ability to APPLY and DEPLOY their awareness, understanding and appreciation of the concepts, principles and techniques in real–life practice of Talent Management. The answers to TYPE B questions will reflect examinees' capacities for critical analysis, judgement, and objectivity in measuring and gauging Talent Management challenges scientifically and devising approaches, plans and programs to resolving them with accountability and higher degree of success and effectiveness. TYPE B Questions also would all have four answer–choices and ONLY one of these four would be INCORRECT. The rest of the THREE of these ANSWERS would be principally correct, but they represent varying levels of suitability for the situation expressed in respective questions. The best of these THREE answers carries the maximum 10 marks, and the least suitable the least – 5 marks. The third correct answer with mid–level suitability carries 7.5 marks. Examinees have to choose only ONE of these FOUR answer choices and they are scored 0, 5, 7.5 or 10, depending on their choice of answer–option.

The Objectives and Principles Underlying the Design of TMP^™ Exam

The TMI exams aim at validating the registrants' potential and capacity to effectively perform a breadth of Talent Management roles and functions in complex, large organizations operating within a transnational business/ non–business system. The TMI exam system validates this potential through assessing registrants' knowledge about Talent Management theory and practice, and their ability to apply this knowledge to achieve excellence in their performance of the roles assigned to them. These exams are designed on standards derived from the TMI Standardized Knowledge Architecture for Practice Excellence. TMI-UKF^™ is the capstone TMI framework on which the TMI Body of Knowledge has been fleshed out to redefine the profession of Talent Management in the 21st century.

TMI exams test registrants on their knowledge of the state–of–the–art principles, theories, techniques, tools, and generally accepted practices of Talent Management as boned out in TMI-UKF^™. These exams expect that individuals being assessed for their TMI Credentials not only read the material contained in the TMI Starter Kits, but also constantly maintain familiarity with the latest in Talent Management theory and practice by reading journals and books; attending podcasts of experts; and participating in professional development programs and events.

Qualifying the TMP^™ Exam

Usually, a score of 65%-70% on the aggregate in a TMP^™ certification exam can be safely deemed to be eminently qualification–worthy, yet, practically an examinee’s actual, individual scores do not decide the recommendation for credential award. Instead, the final recommendations for the TMP^™ award are actually given by the TPCB after considering the benchmarked scores – which are derived by scaling the actual scores of examinees of a particular exam event by a factor denoting the variances of scores obtained by the entire universe of examinees in the same exam event. The TPCB certification award recommendation system works on the affirmative–action approach, ensuring that examinees across various exam regions do not suffer or gain because of the uncontrollable systemic or environment elements.

Preparing for the TMP^™ Exam

TMP^™ is for the young HR professionals aspiring to break into the hallowed Talent Management space. Their capabilities to belong in this exclusive club have to be validated rigorously by TMI. It is critical, therefore, for all TMP^™ aspirants to focus on widening their perspective of Talent Management. While the TMI TMP^™ Resource Box contains reading-books as well as guidelines on how to study for the TMP^™ exam, no examinee should get the impression that studying from these is complete or sufficient for exams. It should be remembered that Talent Management is an evolving discipline, and will perhaps never become an exact enough science to be contained in all its completeness in one single textbook, or even in a few of them. Attempts to try and understand such disciplines through one book or a set of books is clearly fraught with the danger of restricting our understanding them across all the dimensions that they need to be truly understood along. Indeed, TMI has evolved its landmark essential knowledge model in what is the world’s largest and most extensive ever project on defining knowledge essentials for excellence in Talent Management. Yet, as said earlier, simply because of the enormous and growing breadth that Talent Management covers, it is impossible to prescribe a single, omnibus exam reference resource, source, text, or reference etc., for preparing for TMI certification exams. As the world’s foremost standards and credentialing body in Talent Management, TMI shoulders the onerous responsibility of covering the entire landscape of contemporary Talent Management, and everything else that may be connected to it, for only then, can TMI claim it has assessed and validated individuals across all areas that impact, or have the potential of impacting their professional capabilities for practicing Talent Management.

Hence, to ensure that all TMP^™ registrants groom themselves into the best of young international professionals, TMI advises them to read extensively on the subject from as many sources as possible. Please do refer to the Exam Preparation Guide included in the TMP^™ Resource Box to know some of the important external resources and modes you can use to expand your understanding of Talent Management, as well as prepare better for your TMP^™ examination. While TMI TMP^™ examinees are clearly advised to use the official TMI publication – The TMI Practitioners’ Handbook on Talent Management– as the master reference for preparing for their exams, the handbook in no way can be assumed to prepare an examinee completely for the TMP^™ examination. Though, a sizable number of questions in a typical TMP^™ exam are certainly drawn from content which is available in the Handbook, the rest of the questions in the exam are drawn from content from other sources. Indeed, though the topics of all exam questions are covered in the handbook, their treatment is not extended or detailed enough to provide the necessary depth. TMI therefore strongly advises all examinees to tap other online and offline resources to brush up their concepts and awareness about not only how Talent Management impacts business and HRM, but also how HRM today seeks to enhance its effectiveness by connecting better with business, management, and society at large.