Professional Review volunteer

We interview all new registrants for Chartered engineer (CEng) and Incorporated engineer (IEng) membership after we’ve checked their academic qualifications and supporting documents.

This interview is called the Professional Review Interview.

There are many other routes to membership and these all require volunteer assessors to carry out interviews or desk-based reviews.

About you

To become a Professional Review volunteer, you must be professionally registered as a CEng or an IEng member or Fellow.

You must be able to give some of your time up for around two interviews each year or be available to conduct desk-based assessments.

Meet a Professional Review volunteer

• 

  Emma Taylor

  Emma is not only a Professional Reviewer but also a mentor, putting her in a prime position to best advise developing engineers prior to the interview process.

What you will do

Interviewers

Interviewers carry out a review of an applicant's written submission and their performance at a Professional Review Interview. They then make a recommendation to our Professional Review Committee. There will always be two interviewers per Professional Review Interview.

In most cases, interviews measure applicants against the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC) requirements. They can take place in the UK or in one of over a hundred other countries where we have locally-based members.

Applicants for Fellow membership may sometimes be asked to attend an interview after a desk review.

Industrial Advisors

The Industrial Advisor’s main task is to make an initial peer assessment of applications when an interview is not initially required:

• Applications for transfer from Member to Fellow
• Applications from existing CEng, IEng or EngTech registrants
• Applications via a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA)
• Applications via the European Mobility Directive (EMD)

Industrial Advisors only conduct desk-based assessments and will normally review applicants from their own area of expertise or specialist industry.       

How you will benefit

Becoming a Professional Review volunteer is a great way to contribute towards your own Continuing Professional Development (CPD) - you can list it as part of your CPD activities in Career developer.

We provide initial training to volunteer assessors. They must then take refresher training every two years.

Each year there are training workshops across the UK and in selected international regions. There is also online training available.

If you're already an assessor, you can access the Professional Review volunteer training and support page (login required) for more guidance. 

For more information on the Interviewer and Industrial Advisor training sessions, please contact assessortraining@imeche.org

You can read the latest PRC Newsletter for more information.

How much time it will take

Depending on the levels of activity within each region of the UK, Interviewers will normally participate in at least two interviews per year.

We allocate dates quarterly using an online management tool allowing Interviewers to control how much time they can contribute.

International Interviews are organised on a needs basis, determined by each country. We contact local Interviewers as required.

We contact Industrial Advisors at various points throughout the year with requests to review one to five applications at a time. The expected report turnaround time is two weeks.

Where you will be

You can be based in the UK or abroad to be a Professional Review volunteer – either an Interviewer or an Industrial Advisor.