I'd actually suggest that the real world of engineering (i.e. outside the PEIs ? ) is no worse than any other profession in this regard, and possibly slightly better than some. It does very much depend on the role, consultancy (which I now work in) I would say has more "pushy" types in it than, say development and manufacturing engineering where I came from. The music industry which I used to work in I'd suggest is far more ego driven than the rail industry I now work in. But again this is true across all professions.
We should be very careful about gender stereotyping here: anyone who has involvement with (for example) the marketing profession will know that women can be just as aggressive as men in the workplace!
But yes I'd totally agree about the confidence thing (again which applies across all professions), and this is something we can address as a profession if we decide to do it. Personally I think my bugbear of the appalling lack of training and development given to engineering managers and team leaders is a big issue here.
Oh, the Fellowship thing...I think the IET is very clear that it wants to see business leaders as Fellows (quite reasonably), and the process is pretty straightforward for that. Where the process is confusing is for recognising those who have a long respected technical career, it does (from the way it's presented) appear to need a recent "big event" to hang the application on.
The big issue I noticed is that there is more support for potential applicants than there appears to be. This is really important, given that I think fair to say that most potential applicants aren't going to apply unless they are pretty sure they are going to get it - the sort of person who is eligible has plenty of other things to occupy them! I have found that the IET could be much clearer that Fellowship Advisers are there and available to support "over a coffee" chats before pen is put to paper, which would be a huge help to the type of person I think you're describing. I'm as passionate about putting potential Fellows in touch with advisers as I am about putting potential registrants in touch with PRAs. In practice this is what I find the most successful at getting the less confident - but highly able - over the hurdle.
Getting my CMgr was interesting...I had a phone call with a CMI adviser who talked through my recent career (against specific criteria), and they then basically put together my application. (The CMI then interviews supporters over the phone to check this.) They recognise that people at that sort of senior level have other things to think about. If Fellowship had a route that worked like that I'd bet there'd be far more applicants - and excellent ones at that.
In summary: I'd like to see far more Fellows appearing who are doing such interesting things that they haven't really got the time or energy to expend on persuading the IET to accept them as Fellows!
Incidentally, when I do run across potential fellows I always encourage them to apply asap - because the process is based on recent activities / achievements it's worth getting the application in as soon as they have something nice and clear to show in the past five years.
(P.S. I am not, of course, a Fellow. I have never actually applied. But I've got very near applying several times now so I'm getting to know the start of the process quite well!)
I'd actually suggest that the real world of engineering (i.e. outside the PEIs ? ) is no worse than any other profession in this regard, and possibly slightly better than some. It does very much depend on the role, consultancy (which I now work in) I would say has more "pushy" types in it than, say development and manufacturing engineering where I came from. The music industry which I used to work in I'd suggest is far more ego driven than the rail industry I now work in. But again this is true across all professions.
We should be very careful about gender stereotyping here: anyone who has involvement with (for example) the marketing profession will know that women can be just as aggressive as men in the workplace!
But yes I'd totally agree about the confidence thing (again which applies across all professions), and this is something we can address as a profession if we decide to do it. Personally I think my bugbear of the appalling lack of training and development given to engineering managers and team leaders is a big issue here.
Oh, the Fellowship thing...I think the IET is very clear that it wants to see business leaders as Fellows (quite reasonably), and the process is pretty straightforward for that. Where the process is confusing is for recognising those who have a long respected technical career, it does (from the way it's presented) appear to need a recent "big event" to hang the application on.
The big issue I noticed is that there is more support for potential applicants than there appears to be. This is really important, given that I think fair to say that most potential applicants aren't going to apply unless they are pretty sure they are going to get it - the sort of person who is eligible has plenty of other things to occupy them! I have found that the IET could be much clearer that Fellowship Advisers are there and available to support "over a coffee" chats before pen is put to paper, which would be a huge help to the type of person I think you're describing. I'm as passionate about putting potential Fellows in touch with advisers as I am about putting potential registrants in touch with PRAs. In practice this is what I find the most successful at getting the less confident - but highly able - over the hurdle.
Getting my CMgr was interesting...I had a phone call with a CMI adviser who talked through my recent career (against specific criteria), and they then basically put together my application. (The CMI then interviews supporters over the phone to check this.) They recognise that people at that sort of senior level have other things to think about. If Fellowship had a route that worked like that I'd bet there'd be far more applicants - and excellent ones at that.
In summary: I'd like to see far more Fellows appearing who are doing such interesting things that they haven't really got the time or energy to expend on persuading the IET to accept them as Fellows!
Incidentally, when I do run across potential fellows I always encourage them to apply asap - because the process is based on recent activities / achievements it's worth getting the application in as soon as they have something nice and clear to show in the past five years.
(P.S. I am not, of course, a Fellow. I have never actually applied. But I've got very near applying several times now so I'm getting to know the start of the process quite well!)
