PowerPoint Certifications and Certificates

If you’re looking for a way to demonstrate your skills in PowerPoint, you might be overwhelmed by the different certifications and certificate programs available. You might also have questions, such as ‘will I need to become certified in PowerPoint to get a job,’ ‘how can I become certified in PowerPoint,’ or ‘how much preparation will I need to do to become certified?”This article aims to answer these questions so you can efficiently choose the right path towards a PowerPoint certification. Keep reading to find out more.

What is PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint is the most commonly used presentation software across almost all professional industries. PowerPoint is one of the most important parts of Microsoft’s Office 365 programs, alongside Word and Excel. PowerPoint lets users easily create vibrant and memorable presentations that quickly communicate meaning in a professional setting. Users can add animations, transitions, graphics, and other imagery to their slides, ensuring they produce both communicative and impressive presentations for their audience.

PowerPoint is a slideshow editing tool built to give users the tools they need to organize information, communicate effectively, and produce presentations to deliver through live address or without a presenter. PowerPoint makes the job easier and more efficient, whether you manage important information in advance of a meeting, prepare a sales pitch to a potential client, or compile important workplace policies and procedures in a single place. This versatility has made PowerPoint an industry-standard tool in almost all professional contexts.

Read more about what PowerPoint is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with PowerPoint?

PowerPoint allows users to create vibrant and memorable visual presentations that can serve a wide variety of purposes. PowerPoint’s advanced features let users integrate dynamic animations and 3D modeled graphics into their designs, allowing them to create more complex presentations than simple text projected onto a screen. Whether you are attempting to keep an audience engaged during a critical seminar or make a sales pitch as memorable as possible, PowerPoint gives you the tools to wow your audience.

Some users will use PowerPoint to create informative slideshows that condense complicated information into a single, easy-to-digest presentation. This makes the program ideal for both instructors and professionals looking to host informational seminars regularly. In fact, many online classes you take will use PowerPoint to provide students with the main takeaways from a lecture. Some users, who need to persuade audiences, such as entrepreneurs meeting with potential investors, will use PowerPoint to create memorable and persuasive presentations that convince their audience to invest in their product.

Certifications vs. Certificates: What’s the Difference?

New PowerPoint users looking to get certified may not be familiar with the difference between a certificate and a certification. These are both methods of becoming certified, but they demonstrate proficiency in different manners.

Students receive certification after passing a PowerPoint skills proficiency exam, proctored by Microsoft. This exam tests students’ PowerPoint knowledge and expects them to have prior skills training. These certifications often expire, requiring users to update their credentials frequently.

Students who complete an industry-recognized certificate granting training program will receive official certification. It is akin to a diploma, reflecting that students have received significant hands-on training even if they don’t have on-the-job experience. These certificates rarely expire but tend to be much more expensive (as you pay for the professional PowerPoint training).

Top Certifications & Certificates for PowerPoint

Students without much PowerPoint experience may wish to consider enrolling in a certificate-granting training course, such as Noble’s PowerPoint Bootcamp. This course will provide students with hands-on training to master PowerPoint. In addition to the training, students will leave the class with a certificate demonstrating to potential employers that they have received industry-recognized skills training.

Students who already have PowerPoint training will want to pass an exam to become a Microsoft PowerPoint Associate. This exam expects students to have about one hundred and fifty hours of hands-on experience and tests a user’s ability to manage slides and insert presentation elements such as tables and charts. 

Students looking to brush up on their PowerPoint skills in preparation for a certification exam may also wish to enroll in a professional training program.

Should I Get Certified in PowerPoint?

Very few professional jobs will require an employee to become PowerPoint certified. While using PowerPoint isn’t uncommon in many professional settings, it is rarely central enough to an employee’s job responsibilities to make certification a make or break aspect of an application. However, becoming PowerPoint certified, alongside any other elements of the Microsoft Office suite, will demonstrate to prospective employers that an applicant has extensive skills training that can be of use in a professional setting.

How to Get Certified in PowerPoint

The best way to become PowerPoint certified will depend on your experience with the program. Passing a certification exam will be an ideal option for users with a lot of on-the-job experience but no formal training. Students without much PowerPoint experience will want to enroll in a skills training program to receive the requisite training and be awarded a certificate in PowerPoint.

Learn PowerPoint with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Professionals looking to learn PowerPoint may consider skills development training through Noble Desktop. These courses, available in person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and through live online instruction, will give students hands-on training in designing and organizing information using PowerPoint. These courses, which expert instructors teach, will provide students with the experience needed to build evocative and memorable presentations. Even in online courses, class sizes are kept small, so students can interface directly with their instructor to receive assistance and feedback. Plus, Noble offers free retakes on all its courses, giving students more opportunities to practice building presentations in a professional environment.

Noble offers a PowerPoint Bootcamp, which teaches students, even those without prior PowerPoint experience, how to design compelling and evocative presentations. In this certificate-granting program, students will learn how to work with PowerPoint layouts, add animations and graphics, and work with layers, charts, graphs, and other objects. Then, students will receive advanced skills training, such as creating reusable PowerPoint templates, utilizing multimedia features in a presentation, and recording a presentation for later use. These skills will take students from novices to PowerPoint experts and prepare them to use the program professionally.

Since PowerPoint is a design program, Noble also offers students a PowerPoint Presentation Design course. This class focuses on the rhetorical and theoretical side of communicating through PowerPoint. In this class, students will learn design principles related to color, typography, graphic images, and other visual design elements. Whereas a bootcamp course teaches students how to use the tool to build presentations, this course will teach students how to design them, giving them the composition and design theories they need to make their presentations memorable and effective.

Key Insights

• Students looking to demonstrate to prospective employers that they are skilled in PowerPoint may wish to become certified in the application.
• There are two ways to become certified. Students can complete a certificate-granting training program or pass a certification exam.
• Certification exams are ideal for students with a large amount of hands-on experience with PowerPoint. 
• Certificate programs are better suited for students who don’t have much experience with PowerPoint or want to hone their skills in preparation for a certification exam.
• Whether you are looking for a certificate program or looking to train for a certification exam, Noble Desktop offers PowerPoint training courses to help, available both in-person and live online.