ARE CENG AND IENG EQUAL IN STATUS

I did a Fitter/Machinist(I suppose a new term for Fitter & Turner) appie-ship in Zimbabwe, was moved into the drawing office, got a CGLI Full Tech Cert.(and a SilverMedal). Became an Engineering Technician and then was upgraded to IEng after working my way up to an engineer. Ultimately my lack of a degree is what causes me not to be able to apply for jobs. Even if I do, I have no doubt the software filters me out. I hope the designation would indicate to a potential employer that I have attained a certain level of experience and ability. The reality is that formal education is what counts, especially in the day of computerised job applications.

Anthony when you earned your IEng did you apply for GCGI from City and Guilds?

GCGI academical equal to BENg degree.

In USA for example it was evaluated by NACES member agency as equivalent to Bachelors of Engineering degree from US University.

Persons who earned GCGI put on the resume that its academic equivalent is BEng degree.  So no software filters can block it.

But also with FTC (or FTD) and IEng you can apply to a  final year of some BEng programs and complete the degree in a year.

The Full Tech Cert was regarded as broadly equivalent to the Higher National Certificate, though perhaps rather more specialied in scope. It was accepted as satisfying the academic requirements for the old T.Eng.


M. M. Waserman BTEE, MCGI, CEng MBCS, MIET, CBT

Daniel, thanks for the link  I really must read that report properly sometime, Not while it's sunny though

Re filtering out non-graduates: It's not just software though, there's the human filters as well  The only solution I know is apply, apply, apply. And, as all advisors on recruitment would say, try to make contact with actual engineering managers rather than HR staff.


And make as many personal contacts as you possibly can. The job market genuinely is a totally unfair "old boy's club" (it's called the free market ) where huge numbers of jobs are "won" by chatting to the right person in the bar before the jobs are even advertised. From the recruiter's side there is a genuine advantage to this (apart from saving lots of cash and time), if you take someone on from a personal recommendation you can (if you trust the person making the recommendation) find out the whole back story for the person you're taking on. Whereas people can, and do, blag their way through CVs and interviews. So you want yourself to be somebody who's getting recommendations, then qualifications become far less of an issue. I'm sure people here will start shouting "that's unfair!" - tough, it's very often the way it works.


We're off topic here really, but it's a very important issue - particularly for IEng level engineers who've come up the non-graduate root. I'd strongly recommend two very old but still worthwhile books. "Perfect CV" and "Perfect Interview" by Max Eggert. You may not like what he says, but he describes brilliantly how recruitment actually works and how to work with it.


Final point (which I've said many times here over many many years), a good trick which has worked for me every time I've changed jobs is to apply for a job lower in level than the one you are doing now. In my case, either I was taken on for the job I applied for and then very rapidly promoted (I have never applied for a promotion in my career!) or - in the most recent case - they offered me a higher level job, which I wasn't on paper (but was in practice) qualified for, straight away. May not work for everybody but did for me.


Right, I'm going out into the sun now  Apologies for any typos.


Cheers, Andy

Moshe. I did not know about the IEng allowing me to get the 'upgrade' from CGLI. Is this still available? I have had a look at the top-up degree from the University of Portsmouth. My main concern is that my maths might be a bit rusty. Are there any other English universities offering an online 'top-up degree?