Being registered as a Chartered Professional Engineer in an engineering field is the highest technical credential for any practising engineer. This credential is recognised nationally and internationally, allowing your career to advance and opening new opportunities.
Engineers practising in Fire Safety Engineering can obtain globally recognised chartered credentials through two organizations: Engineers Australia (EA) and the Institute of Fire Engineers (IFE).
Recently, I obtained my Chartered credential through EA. In this blog, I will briefly overview the steps involved in getting your Chartered status with EA.
Eligibility for getting registered as a fire safety engineer
- Experience: At least five years of experience in the fire safety industry. If you have more than 15 years of experience, getting registered with Engineers Australia is easier.
- Educational qualification: Washington Accord or equivalent undergraduate engineering degree in fire safety engineering or equivalent.
Application process
Self-assessment
The first step in the application process is a self-assessment to confirm your eligibility to obtain the credentials.
- Select the occupational category.
Visit https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/credentials/chartered to start your application process. From this page, you can select the 5-15 years option or the 15+ years option for your application process based on your years of experience. I selected the former as I have 7+ years of experience in the industry.
- Area of practice
Following the selection of the 5-15 years option, you need to select the area of practice. I selected Fire Safety Engineering from the list of options available.
- Self-assessment
The self-assessment section has four sub-sections. Each sub-section will have three to four questions to self-assess your competency. For each of these questions, you have to rate yourself as ‘Developing’, ‘Functional’, ‘Proficient’ or ‘Advanced’. The EA requires the applicant to have a ‘Functional’ or above level of competency in each sub-section.
- Personal commitment
- Obligation to community
- Value in workplace
- Technical proficiency
If your self-rating is at least at the ‘Functional’ level, you can proceed with your Industry review process.
Industry review process
In order to proceed with the interview process, a profile separate from EA is required.
The industry review process involves submitting an online assessment. The assessment involves writing a few short paragraphs related to your skill set and work experience which your nominated colleagues or managers are required to provide feedback and confirm.
Once logged into your newly created profile for industry review, you will need to write sixteen short statements with a maximum of 1500 characters of questions related to your skill set and experience. You will also need to provide evidence related to the statements you provided in your industry review. Once completed, you need to assign one of your reviewers to each of the 16 statements you have provided.
Once the sixteen statements are completed, you can send this information to your reviewer for their review and confirmation.
Evidence supporting your statements in the form of engineering drawings, reports, or calculations is required later during the evidence discussion with the EA assessor.
The reviewers of your applications should have at least seven years of experience, ideally in the same area of practice, and be registered as a Chartered Engineer with EA. Ideal reviewers are the senior engineers or the direct managers who know your experience and skill set and are willing to review your chartership application.
Chartered assessment
After your reviewers have finalised the review process, you will need to make the payment for the assessment. You are also required to upload your latest CV and CPD (Continued Professional Development) document.
CPD
You can upload your CPD learnings to the EA portal. Log on to https://portal.engineersaustralia.org.au/home and go to the MyEA page.
The Record my CPD option will allow you to add a new CPD activity or Import other CPD to your profile to add CPD hours.
Duration
The current official duration as of 2023 is approximately 16 weeks. However, it took more than 20 weeks for my application to get through to the assessor.
In addition to the above document submission, the EA has informed me to submit my Training and Experience Report (TER). EA will forward you a template of the TER document which you are required to populate with information related to formal qualifications and work experience – both supervised and responsible experience.
Interview
The professional interview is the last step in obtaining chartered status. The interview panel generally consists of an EA chartered coordinator and a senior member from the industry practising in your discipline area. The interview will be approximately one hour in length, and during the process, the assessor will ask questions to understand your skill set, authenticate your work experience, and may ask you to elaborate on the career episodes you have submitted during the application process. At the end of the interview, the assessors will confirm if you have been successful in obtaining your chartered registration.
Fees
- EA annual membership fees: 541 AUD
- Chartership application and assessment fees: 1650 AUD
