in need of IET Fellow to Support my IET Fellow membership application

Hi,

I appreciate the difficulty here, the wording is:

"Your two supporters must be people of recognised repute who know you professionally and can vouch for the evidence you provide. One should be an IET Fellow or a Fellow of any Professional Engineering Institution"

The challenge is "can vouch for the evidence you provide", which is why it needs to be someone who knows you well enough to know that you did what you said you did.

If you absolutely do not have a professional relationship with any fellow of any any UK institution then I suggest you contact fellowship@theiet.org  They are experienced in engaging with people who are in this situation and working to find a way through it.

The one suggestion I would make is that an effective way of gaining potential supporters is to engage in IET activities - or the activities of any of the other UK PEIs. It won't be an instant answer, for the reasons above fellows you meet won't be able to endorse you until they have known you for a while, however it is the way that many of us met our future supporters. 

Thanks,

Andy

Dear Andy,

Thank you so much for your response. As you mentioned, I did reach out to the Fellowship team and even spoke with them directly to explain my situation, given that I don’t have any IET Fellows within my close professional circle who have worked with me.

The IET Fellow who endorsed my application is from the same line of work, and therefore had a strong understanding of the projects I have delivered. On that basis, they kindly agreed to support my case. I explained this in detail to the application team, but unfortunately they have declined, stating that because the Fellow has not worked with me directly, they cannot accept their endorsement. They also confirmed that they are unable to support me in finding another IET Fellow for my applications .. So as of now its a dead end for me ..

Quite interestingly i happened to engage with few IETF and they have received their fellowship without any IETF endorsement ,, They mentioned that their managers in the senior level has endorsed their application and they were accepted and even granted the fellowship .. 

Hi,

Yes, I'm not surprised at that, the most important issues are that the supporter has a level of reputation in the industry and that they know you well. Of course in these cases there will be a judgement made if they are not Fellows as to whether thewy hold a similar level of repute in the industry.

Thanks,

Andy

Hi Mark,

I’ve been speaking with individuals who recently received their Fellowship, and many mentioned that their supporters were typically Directors or above... and they donot hold any fellowship from IEEE or IET ..infact none ..

In my case, my direct manager, who is a Senior Director, is already supporting me. I can also request endorsements from other leaders across my current and past roles who know my work well and can provide credible references...

What I’m trying to better understand is how IET defines or evaluates this supporter repute?

I would really appreciate your guidance and any suggestions on how best to navigate this requirement to strengthen my application.

Hi Andy,

Your advice to contact fellowship@theiet.org is reasonable, and it is exactly what is written on the IET website, but it doesn't work anymore. I got a reply from their team:

1) They can't assist in this situation.

2) They can't help finding referrals.

3) They don't accept referrals other than IET. For example, they don't accept fellow referrals from BCS.

4) They require your referral to work at the same company as you for at least 5 years.

It seems impossible to meet the requirements to have a co-worker who is also an IET fellow and worked with you for such a long period :'(

Something is wrong with the above bullet points as fellows, other than FIET are acceptable that professionally know you. 

• Find two supporters: your supporters must be people of recognised repute who know you professionally and can vouch for the evidence you provide. This means one of them should be an IET Fellow or a Fellow of any Professional Engineering Institution, as defined by the Engineering Council.  If you are unable to find such a supporter, please describe how your supporters are of recognised repute. If you would like assistance finding an IET Fellow, you can email fellowship@theiet.org.

The above statement also says that if you draw a blank on finding a fellow supporter, wither FIET or a fellow of another PEI, then you can adopt a Plan B approach etc.  

And similarly bullet point 4 is incorrect, as Gerard says the criteria is "know you professionally", they don't have to have worked at the same company. Many Fellows are self employed consultants, or CEOs of small companies where they will be the only Fellow.

But it is reasonable that supporters need to have known you during the period of time for which you are claiming evidence.

As a general point to all readers of this thread: I don't know about other IET Fellows, but I've been receiving a lot of requests over the past 1-2 years from potential fellows asking if can support their application. Before approaching people I'd suggest considering this: in general only approach those where you already have their contact details in your address book. If you haven't, then it's unlikely they will know you well enough to be able to support your application.

Look at it this way: if someone who I don't know approaches me to support their application, then all I know about them is what they tell me. Which the Fellow assessors can read from themselves from the application. So my signature would not be adding any value at all to that application.

Now, I'm sure there are people in my industry who I may not speak to daily, but I've known them for long enough and worked with them at a level where I would be happy to support them. And this is where the "If you would like assistance finding an IET Fellow, you can email..." point can come in useful, sometimes you'll find someone you know slightly indirectly who you didn't know was a Fellow, and who may be able to help. But please take it graciously if they say they don't feel they know you well enough to support.

But please don't try approaching random Fellows on here or elsewhere asking them to support you, it's frustrating for you and embarrassing for them. Use your own network.

Getting IET Fellowship is tough, but of course it would be meaningless if it wasn't. Ultimately it is a mark that you have made a significant impact in your industry, and the argument is that if you have, then suitable supporters will know you have.

That all said, I do appreciate that this is harder for non-UK applicants, hopefully others can help further clarify the point Gerard makes about the range of supporters that can be used. My understanding is certainly the same as Gerard's (and Gerard understands the process much better than I do anyway!) 

I would also be interested to know why those who don't have PEI Fellows - particularly FIETs - in their network are interested in applying? It may seem an odd question, but personally the value for me was that because my professional network included a number of PEI Fellows, it meant there was a potential career advantage in becoming one myself as it was a well understood status. If I'd stayed in my first career in a different engineering industry where it was less of a "thing" I can imagine I wouldn't have applied - in fact I doubt I would have ever joined a PEI at all. I'm not writing this to try to put people off - I'm all for expanding understanding the PEIs into areas where they currently are not well appreciated - it's just curiosity, particularly as personally I seem to be seeing a lot of interest in fellowship from "non-traditional" PEI areas, i.e. beyond the "utilities - defence - transportation - infrastructure" fields they tend to be known for.

>> I would also be interested to know why those who don't have PEI Fellows - particularly FIETs - in their network are interested in applying?

Hey Andy, here is my motivation:

Let's say I worked at Meta in the UK for 5 years. It's a reputable, well-known, hard-to-get industry-leading company with an impact on billions of users worldwide. But I don't see any IET fellows around in the company. It looks like a dead end for the whole industry-leading company getting into IET, unless someone(me in this case) gets into the IET circle.

>> I would also be interested to know why those who don't have PEI Fellows - particularly FIETs - in their network are interested in applying?

Hey Andy, here is my motivation:

Let's say I worked at Meta in the UK for 5 years. It's a reputable, well-known, hard-to-get industry-leading company with an impact on billions of users worldwide. But I don't see any IET fellows around in the company. It looks like a dead end for the whole industry-leading company getting into IET, unless someone(me in this case) gets into the IET circle.

Artem, they are there as I personally have been involved in assessing FIET applicants from Meta. Some amazing stories too.

Gerard, there may be some across 100k SWEs at Meta, but within my org and the closest orgs (hundreds of people with whom I worked), there are none.

When I asked people around, they mentioned that they'd like to join IET, but there are no referrals in the org :'(

Let's say I worked at Meta in the UK for 5 years. It's a reputable, well-known, hard-to-get industry-leading company with an impact on billions of users worldwide. But I don't see any IET fellows around in the company. It looks like a dead end for the whole industry-leading company getting into IET, unless someone(me in this case) gets into the IET circle.

Hi Artem,

Yes that makes really good sense. That said, I will say that you don't need to get too worried about that way in being fellowship: membership and CEng is just as good a way of getting into the IET - and is much easier. Once you are a member then by getting even slightly involved in the IET it's pretty easy to find supporters for Fellowship if you decide you want it.

The only reason I eventually applied for fellowship was because so many of my friends in the IET kept asking me why I hadn't applied yet!

However, that all said I still agree with you that there needs to be a way that potential fellows can be supported by people other than FIETs - and as Gerard says, as far as I'm aware they can.

Thanks,

Andy 

Artem Kuznetsov said:

they mentioned that they'd like to join IET, but there are no referrals in the org

Hi,

As my other message, you don't need referrals for membership, just suitable qualifications (and money!)

Thanks,

Andy

>> Once you are a member then by getting even slightly involved in the IET it's pretty easy to find supporters for Fellowship if you decide you want it.

I think this will not be easy to use such a supporter. I contacted the IET support to clarify this, and they clearly said that:
1) "both supporters need to be able to verify all provided information within your Fellow application". This means I can't use any work-related contributions with such supporters who are not from my org inside Meta.

2) "You should know them at least two years" - this means I have to wait 2 years until I can use such a supporter even for a public activity. E.g I have a YouTube channel, public articles, public media coverage, I created and led mentoring communities with tens of thousands of participants, but I can't use any of that in my application for at least the next 2 years :'(

I hope there is some logic behind those requirements, but it sounds like an unreasonable limitation for me.

You need to be careful re point #1 as it all depends on which criteria you choose. It may be possible to use FIET extrenal to meta if your evidece is extrrnal to meta. for instance if you sre offering evidence of industry forums or standards bodies etc then people external to meta sre valid people to validate and support you. I know people that have never worked with me but i know them from stanards and projects and i would be more than happy to support them. So its not so black and white. 

Artem Kuznetsov said:

2) "You should know them at least two years" - this means I have to wait 2 years until I can use such a supporter even for a public activity. E.g I have a YouTube channel, public articles, public media coverage, I created and led mentoring communities with tens of thousands of participants, but I can't use any of that in my application for at least the next 2 years :'(

That's not correct either, provided people of standing have known for two years that you have been doing this then that's fine. If they don't then it's back to the point I made above - the point of Fellowship is to recognise those who have made an impact on the industry. If you can show that you have been recognised by leaders in your industry for the last two years then you're eligible for Fellowship, if you can't you're not. That's really the point.

Also it's not about what you've published, publishing stuff is easy these days, it's about whether this has had an actual impact. If it has had an impact, then you should be able to find someone who can say it did.

To try to bring this to conclusion (because it feels like Gerard and I are repeating ourselves here), I would suggest you resubmit with a second supporter who has known your work for two years who is at a responsible level: for example the CEO, CTO or Technical Director or similar of an engineering company, or the chair of a national or international industry committee, or a senior (internationally recognised) academic in your field - basically the sort of people who would clearly be eligible for Fellowship were they to apply. They do not have to be in Meta, but they will need to explain how they are aware of your work.

However I would also strongly suggest, if you haven't already, that before you do this you consult a Fellowship Adviser at the IET to review your application. https://pra.theiet.org/search-advisor  They can also offer an opinion on your choice of second supporter.

spot on andy! 

Andy Millar said:

That's not correct either, provided people of standing have known for two years that you have been doing this then that's fine.

It seems strange to me that the IET support provides completely different information from what you provide here. They clearly said: "You should know them for at least two years". I'm confused about whom I should believe on such qualification questions.

If you don't mind, if you are on the IET committee, can I refer them to your quotes on this (and other) questions?