Alex


To respond to your first point, I was brought up to know that the door to the top is marked "push".  Now I am older, if not wiser, I know that the world we live in is not formed by people waiting for things to happen.


I will answer your second point about peers in a few days but I have been in Savoy Place for two days and have some other things in my life to sort out first.


Ian

Ian, I would make the analogy with military decorations; if soldiers had to apply for their own decorations, we would see a very different set of chests adorned with ribbons. It would be nice if we did have a decent mechanism for significant peer recognition.

That's already in place.  Did you go to the IET Achievement Awards last month?  You could have invited yourself.  Very uplifting.  Included members and Fellows, some outsiders and some volunteers.


More on peers soon.


Ian

Alex

 

Moving now to your question about peers and “what determines an appropriate match to a particular applicant and upon what basis?”.  I’ll cover this in terms of Fellowship and Registration with the latter setting the scene for the former but if you want to follow up anything about Registration you need a new Forum topic as it will be off-topic on this thread.

 

There are four relevant differences between Registration and Fellowship: 1.  Registration requirements are set by the Engineering Council and operated under licence by the IET.  Procedures have to be agreed and are audited both internally by the IET Audit Committee (QAC) and externally by the Engineering Council. Fellowship requirements are set by the IET and audited internally by the QAC.  2.  There is a difference in scale: Registration has more than ten times as many applicants going through the process each year as Fellowship and has correspondingly many more trained volunteers to support it.  3.  Registration is qualifications and competence based.  Fellowship is criteria based.  4.  An interview is mandatory for Registration (albeit IEng/CEng only) but only about 10% of Fellows are interviewed.  These differences do not preclude using common workflow processes for administrative convenience, and indeed QAC has encouraged it: this is probably where you perceive similarities.

 

The relevant parts of the Engineering Council Registration Code of Practice are sections 11 and 13.  Section 11 says: “The Professional Review shall include two components: a review of documentary evidence and an interview”.  Extracts of section 13 say “Both elements of the Professional Review … shall be conducted by two suitably qualified and trained assessors.  They shall be registrants at or above the registration category in which the applicant is seeking registration, with at least one having substantial experience in the relevant engineering discipline.”  As an advocate of IEng I take some exception to the word “above” but that is for another Forum thread too.

 

The word “peer” does not appear in the Engineering Council document but the intent is clear from the above – it is at its heart a peer review process against certain standards.  In the IET, peer implicitly also means volunteer.

 

The basis for “matching” between applicant and assessor/interviewer is built into the process and the training of both staff and volunteers.  It is in part a hierarchy: the five IET sectors (built environment; design and production; energy; information and communication; transport) followed by a number of volunteer panels, for example armed forces; IT software, computing and control; manufacturing and production, and so on.  In addition, each trained volunteer supplies a record of their employment experience and their fields of engineering.  For selecting volunteers for validating qualifications and what we call underpinning knowledge and understanding the panels and volunteer records are the main basis for this.  These aspects are cleared before an interview by the appropriate panel for the applicant.  Interviewers are drawn from an even bigger pool of trained volunteers to give an even greater spread of expertise.  Selection is therefore based on process (records of a volunteer’s sector/panel/experience etc.) combined with the personal knowledge of both staff and volunteers.

 

Whilst the reason for using a peer is probably self-evident at the technical assessment level, you might wonder why an interviewer using a structured competence-based process needs to be a peer at all.  In theory, any trained interviewer ought to be able to do it.  That’s probably true for competences C, D and E but in practice competences A and B do call for some interpretation and benchmarking: as an example, creativity, innovation and technical leadership mean different things in the railway and nuclear industries to those in telecommunications, electronics or software apps (thank goodness!).

 

Fellowship is criteria-based and the judgement about sustained high levels of achievement is best determined by peers with industry sector knowledge. Peer matching is on similar principles to that described earlier.

 

It is a general rule of human endeavour that the top people in any area know each other. It is the same for engineering Fellows.  (Also that excellence is recognised - why else are there achievement awards as a form of peer recognition? e.g. think sports, entertainment and media but also see previous post re. IET).  Registration volunteers have to withdraw if they know the applicant but this is not as important in Fellowship: you would expect the top people to know each other anyway.  This varies by sector: some are large, others so small that everyone knows each other anyway: in such cases one assessor may deliberately be from another field.

 

The aim throughout is fairness, objectivity, transparency and consistency.  That is why we have published standards for qualifications, competences and criteria.  For registration applicants, there are usually 7-10 volunteer peers involved and for Fellowship 3-6, all in conjunction with experienced staff. This eliminates bias from any one assessor (or interviewer).   It is quite an achievement to have a workflow process that treats every applicant as an individual across such broad areas.


Ian

That's already in place.  Did you go to the IET Achievement Awards last month?  You could have invited yourself.  Very uplifting.  Included members and Fellows, some outsiders and some volunteers.

Ian, yes, I tried that some time ago. There wasn’t much information available at the time and I could probably have used some coaching in how to compose a nomination. The response was a blunt and unhelpful “no”. Seeking guidance in this process would take us even further off topic but I may revisit the topic when life is a bit less hectic.

Moving now to your question about peers and “what determines an appropriate match to a particular applicant and upon what basis?”. 

This all sounds marvellous. I find myself wondering which of the sectors and panels would fit my case. In my first registration interview my two interviewers introduced themselves and talked a little about their backgrounds, not particularly a match to mine but probably as close as the IET could manage. In my second interview I was faced with three interviewers and introductions were at best cursory. My only clue to their backgrounds was a mention of “the semiconductor industry”. It was some months before I discovered the reason for the third presence and I’m still guessing which one it was. Naturally the IET is unable to tell me any more than “They were both experts in your discipline and specialisms, selected based on the evidence in your application”.

 

Coming back on to the topic of Fellowship, I have in mind a character who is a natural Fellow, at the pinnacle of his specialism, of wide experience in business, of good character, and widely described by those who know him as “self-effacing”. By virtue of this and the nature of the IET Fellowship process, the IET will never acknowledge him. It prefers to elevate those who push themselves into the limelight. I think there should at least be room for both.

Hi Ian,


I am Suha. Please let me know how I could contact few fellow members so that I can get more guidance on fellow membership. I am aware of the fellowship criteria document, however I would like to get more clarification.


It would be great, if you could please get back to me.


Thanks,

Suha

Hi Suha,

This is rather an old thread - the previous post which you are responding to is from 2016. Regarding becoming a Fellow, there is information at https://www.theiet.org/membership/types/fiet/ which may help you, but I would suggest that if you think you need guidance there is a good chance you are not yet ready to be a fellow. But I have to ask also, are you a member, as your profile doesn't seem to indicate that you are. Details on becoming a member are at https://www.theiet.org/membership/types/designatory-letters/

If you have specific questions I am sure you will be able to get answers but remember that people are only posting answers here in their spare time and do not have enough of that to give a lengthy description/guidance.

Alasdair

From time to time, I notice - in members news or somewhere on the IET website - a member who has achieved degree(s), CEng, FIET, and even MBE;  and yet their picture suggests they're in their 20s; and appear to have achieved all this from just one job role, or have worked only for one company.


One cannot help but think whether the member(s), as young as they appear to be, are genius engineers; good at form filling, or some other special factor - that doesn't apply to the rest of us - one could only compare it to an overseas athlete, who's been "fast tracked" to a British Passport, so they could compete for Team GB at the Olympic games.


Perhaps, the last enquirer might qualify for this "Fast Track" route. But then again, what do I know?


What I do know is that before the mergers, where we had the IEE, IERE, IProdE (forgot their changed name), IEEIE, SERT, IMechIE, and others I forget. It was much easier to achieve fellowship from the smaller institutions/Societies.


The so called multinational IET has completely barred the vast majority of members from achieving fellowship, due to the entry level being too high. Those wishing to gain fellowship would be better off achieving an honour from the Queen and tea at Buckingham Pl.

The CMI magazines I receive regularly feature board members, indeed often CEOs or at least COOs, of successful and influential companies who are in their 20s. Where these organisations have an influence on the world of technology they would (or at least should!) be eligible for consideration for Fellowship. And good for them!


It's important to remember the FIET isn't (for example) a "next step" after CEng, it's a rather different recognition of those who have had a significant and positive influence on the wider world of engineering and / or technology. It's certainly not (as I understand it) intended to be a badge of honour for just slogging away in the background for 40 years or so - in fact, broadly it's based on evidence from the 5 years leading up to an application.


I've just found this https://www.ratemyjob.com/leadership/20673/13-of-the-youngest-ceos-who-will-make-you-feel-like-youve-done-nothing-with-your-life Other lists are available!


P.S. I don't personally envy these guys at all, it's a particular way of life and a mindset. I've known a few, it's a matter of focussing 100% of your energy on building a successful company literally every waking minute of every day. Loads of money but no time to enjoy it. But it suits some people, and we wouldn't have had the technological revolutions we've had over the past 30-40 years without them, so I don't mind them being recognised at all. As long as there are other people around, with an understanding of real human beings, who can keep them in check sometimes 


Cheers,


Andy