Need help gathering all the relevant pieces of information that are required when on a professional development path? We show you what you need to do to create a good portfolio of evidence
By Craig Thomas
Honing your skills to a point where you can be considered for professional qualifications is what many – if not most – engineers see as an important step on the career ladder.
The start of that journey is submitting an online initial assessment via the CIHT website. You’ll receive confirmation of the route you are eligible for, which means you can start looking at becoming either a Chartered engineer (CEng), an Incorporated Engineer (IEng) or Engineering Technician (EngTech).
If your initial assessment confirms that you are eligible to apply for Professional Review, the process of putting together a portfolio of evidence to support your case has become a great deal easier, thanks to a new online application system. You can now go to the CIHT website, access the application form and start completing it, saving your progress each time you add more information.
There are some basic sections that can be completed to get you going – personal details, your CV and an organisational chart, for example. Then there are the core sections, the UK-SPEC Evidence Forms, which enable you to provide evidence of your experience against the UK SPEC competencies and commitment. To be successful at Professional Review you need to submit a portfolio demonstrating that you meet the standards outlined in the UK SPEC for the level you are applying for.
UK-SPEC is broken down into four competences (A, B, C and D) and one Commitment Standard (E). For each section, you must provide no more than 500 words of evidence on how you have achieved the standard. The word limit means that you have to be concise when listing all the ways that you comply with the standards, so the help of a mentor is strongly encouraged. A mentor should be registered themselves at the level being sought, so they understand the process of compiling a portfolio and can use that experience to help you to structure your evidence. If you cannot find a mentor internally, just get in touch with the education team who will be happy to help put you in contact with someone who can help.
Because the UK-SPEC document covers every type of engineering discipline, the CIHT website also hosts a gap analysis exercise document. Depending on your particular specialism – for example, transport planning, materials and geotechnics, infrastructure, maintenance, etc – the gap analysis contextualises each of the five sections and links it to the specialism. This is a great tool when deciding if you are ready to apply for Professional Review.
One of the key things to remember is to write about your roles and achievements. Don’t say “we did this”, say “I did this” when highlighting your responsibilities in a project.
The other thing to bear in mind is that although you only have 500 words in each section, you can add up to 50 pages of appendices – reports written as part of the project, for example. You still need to edit and craft the appendices so they highlight what you have done.
Another important part of your application are the sponsor authentication forms, completed by two sponsors who are already registered above or at the level you’re applying for. These sponsors are effectively signing off your submission and submit a statement in support of the application.
Once you have completed the online form, the system compiles all the different sections into one final generated document. You can review it as many times as they want, making edits and changes in the system until it’s ready for submission.
When it is ready, just pay the required fees, press ‘Submit’ and you’re on your way. Your portfolio will be sent to two reviewers for a pre-interview assessment and you will be informed if you are eligible to proceed to a Professional Review interview.
Thanks to Greg Saunders, education and qualifications officer at CIHT, for his help and advice with this feature.
Find out how to use CIHT’s new online Professional Review application service here.
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