Professional Registration Interview Delay

Hi Eddy,

Please don't expect a reply from the Registration and Standards Unit (who manage professional registration) on this forum, this forum is for engineer to engineer discussions, it's rare for there to be answers here from IET staff (other than forum admins). if you want to contact RSSU for an answer it's best to do so by email at  profreg@theiet.org

Hopefully you've seen the discussion at  Query on Current Lead Time for CEng Application Assessments  The lead time for interviews is currently several months.

You're not alone...

Thanks,

Andy

Thank you, Andy. I didn't know it takes that long to schedule the interview. 

Hi Eddy,

I made my application on 10th March 2025, progressed thru the appropriate diligence and been waiting on my PRI since 8th August when I received an email to say everything progressed to PRI. Only this week did I receive an offer of an interview on the 20th March next month. So that's over a year. I know been changes/updates at the IET and a backlog, and for myself didn't chase them too much as I know depends on volunteers with the correct training and alignment.

Hopefully your PRI will happen sooner than my timescale,

Cheers GTB 

Good Evening Eddy,

Sorry about the delay. On the surface, it's a service, a form, and a fee, a booking system, a process that can be analysed, management consultants often study processes and try to streamline them.

However Eddy, PRIs rely entirely on matching engineering peers, <unpaid> volunteers who donate their time, skills and sometimes, contemplation over a recommendation. There is a lot more involved than a tick list, or there should be.

Our latest challenge is AI for the applications, meaning the PRI is more important than ever for establishing <authenticity> which again, needs special skills.

It's only a personal view, but I think PRIs in particular attracts a limited range of personality types making volunteers harder to find. Similarly, I think there's been a realisation that career and socio-economic pressures are making volunteers harder to find, book for a PRI, fulfill a PRI on the day - and retain once training has been invested by the IET.

At the same time, a volunteer Interviewer is extremely accountable and has just as many codes and guides to comply with as a staff member doing the same task.

Incidentally I've done 400 PRIs for the IET, about 800 overall.

I hope you get your PRI soon, and that this shines light on the invisible Interviewers and Assessors.

Chris

Thank you GTB. I guess I need to wait!

Hi Chris, I totally agree with you. I wish little sum of the application fee could attract more interviewers, as they also have jobs to do for the money.

Hi Eddy,

Out of curiosity how long did it take to get passed the paid initial assessment stage? My application has been in approximately 14 weeks.

Thanks

The best thing that can be done is to encourage newly professionally registered people to consider volunteering being part of the assessment team. They have recent experience of the process. However, experience to understand the depth of different career paths and thus applications is important. No two applications is the same.

The main constraints i have is that I can only take so many hours out of worktime to support interviews. I have certain days that are loaded with meetings which prevents blocking out time for an interview. Fortunately, with my professional body, all interviews are online, so at least we don't have the constraint of all having to get to a specific place for the interview.

Paying the assessors and interviewers rather than relying on volunteers would make the process prohibitively expensive.