Hi Alex, glad you've raised this. We certainly do recognise that people experience the world differently, and absolutely recognise that the professional registration process presents barriers for many engineers. We're working both internally and externally to address this. A couple of things to do: we'd love your input on our Neurodiversity Member Network -- we meet virtually every 8 weeks or so. You can email inclusion@theiet.org if you're interested. So that I don't mention anything sensitive here, I can also ask our EDI team to jump on this thread to provide some better information about the work I've mentioned above. Hope that's helpful for now and look forward to more discussion on this thread. 

And, rereading your post, how Turing and Tesla might have fared is a really great way to frame the discussion. Will ponder that, too. 

Alex Barrett said:

Does the IET make any recognition of individuals differing social abilities when it is assessing them? 

I suspect, from my experience, that the answer is no - but I only see the process as a PRA, not as an assessor / interviewer so there may be a different answer. However it also begs another question "Do the differing social abilities of individuals affect their assessment by the IET for professional registration?" It would be interesting to know if this question has been / does get reviewed. 

That said, and I'll admit this is only semi-anecdotal, I've been mentoring applicants through the process for probably over 20 years now, and PRA'ing for 7. who have covered a very wide range of issues. I've never come across a problem in this - e.g. on your specific point my experience is that the process doesn't expect any level of social skills beyond a basic ability to communicate technical information. (And I suspect the opinion of the draftees of UK-SPEC would be that it is a requirement for professional registration that the applicant can effectively communicate technical information.) I think any engineering manager will say that they have certain staff who, for example, they wouldn't "put in front of a client", and who may spend their working days almost completely isolated. But I have equally seen such staff get through the professional registration process just fine. (And indeed, I have come across interviewers / assessors whose social skills I would not necessarily rate highly! Only in the past of course )

Getting really anecdotal now, probably the applicants I've seen who've come closest to struggling with the process are those who maybe exhibit ADHD - the process itself does require a level of patience, concentration, and attention to detail. Now I suspect again the UK-SPEC draftees would say those are essential engineering skills, I can see this one a bit from both sides - there are brilliantly intuitive engineers who drive change and improvement even if they are relying on others to do the detailed delivery aspects (I'm a huge fan of Belbin team roles!). Again, provided the process looks for "sufficient" rather than "world leading" abilities here that's ok, and again in my experience it's not generally been a problem, but it is probably (anecdotally!) where I've seen problems come closest. I have seen applicants drop out of the process where I've wondered if there may be an ADHD element...but again I suspect the assessors may feel that if they can't cope with this process they may not be suitable for registration.  

So none of that is to say that we shouldn't be continuously reviewing and checking that there aren't unintended biases in the processes (perhaps particularly in the presentation / interview process), maybe someone more involved on that side will see this thread and comment.

Personally I'm just very glad that when I applied (in 1998) there was no requirement to apply in handwriting, I show symptoms of mild dyspraxia, which amongst other things means I find handwriting challenging. Which in turn meant I spent much of my early career (pre computers) being told by certain senior engineers that I was incompetent due to the untidiness (and indeed often absence) of my written work. So yes, I very much appreciate the question...it's classic KPI stuff, are you sure what you're measuring is really the right thing to measure for what you're trying to achieve.

Thanks,

Andy

I can only imagine how Alan Turing presented in such situations, based upon the various accounts, movies & stage plays about him. We know less about Tesla's personal qualities.

As to handwriting, I'm with you on that one. Sadly as I spend my day near keyboards, I do find handwriting increasingly difficult. It was never good, but I'd consider it today as decidedly bad. I would say that this applies specifically to writing, and less to other manual tasks. I should sit down and write a certain amount every day, by way of practice, but life is too short.

Good Afternoon, Alex,

Thank you for your comment on this important topic, I work as part of the IET’s EDI team – lovely to meet you. To echo what Graeme has mentioned, we are currently working to address this.

In November of 2023, we published a research project exploring the instance and experience of neurodiverse engineers and technicians. We recognised the importance of including those most affected by this research throughout the process, therefore we held a series of ten focus groups with engineers and technicians who identify as neurodivergent and worked closely with an advisory group formed largely of neurodivergent individuals to help ensure our research and outcomes remained grounded in lived experiences. You can read the report in full and our two-page summary here.

Within this report, we set out a series of recommendations for actions that key stakeholders such as organisations, employers, other professional engineering institutions (PEIs) and neurodiverse individuals themselves can take to improve the lived experiences and working environment for neurodivergent professionals. Alongside this, we set out our own seven commitments to making the IET more accessible and supportive to our existing and new neurodivergent members and volunteers. We are committing to:

1. Enhancing neuroinclusion across the IET through improved organisational practices.
2. Ensuring accessibility in our governance processes for increased representation of neurodiverse professionals in leadership roles.
3. Delivering a practical toolkit by Q2 2024 to help foster safe working environments for neurodiverse engineering employees and employers.
4. Offering professional development opportunities to raise awareness of the strengths of neurodiversity within the STEM community.
5. Growing, developing, and supporting our IET neurodiversity network.
6. Advocating for the needs of neurodivergent engineers and technicians; engaging with government and key industry forums to do so.
7. Collaborating with other professional engineering institutions to create a more neuroinclusive profession.

For more on the actions we will be taking to achieve these commitments, you can visit pages 25 and 26 of the full report.

We’ve already started working on some of these. Last year we worked with the Engineering Council to deliver new guidance to support Engineering Institutions in making professional registration more inclusive for neurodivergent applicants and we’re working with external partners to improve our own understanding and awareness.

We also encourage you to tune in to an upcoming webinar that we’re hosting in March. This will further highlight our report findings and share practical advice to organisations and employers in the industry on how to take action and implement real change. More information will be coming soon on this so keep an eye on EngX and our social media channels.

If you have any questions about the above or would like to discuss this topic further, we’d love to hear your thoughts at our neurodiversity member network as Graeme mentioned, please email your interest to inclusion@theiet.org. In the meantime, it would be great to hear your tips and advice for inclusion here on EngX to further spread awareness.

Hi Alex

Thanks for raising this, it is really important that those affected by Neurodiversity get all the help they need from the IET and, Foothold, the IET's Benevolent Fund has help available.  It has developed expert advice, resources and support for neurodiverse engineers, students and apprentices, and those who support them - designed to help members reach their full potential, and live a fulfilled life.  So, I trust the registration team at the IET and all those wonderful IET volunteers who interview and do their utmost to support candidates for registration will go to https://www.myfoothold.org/join-differently-wired-hub/ and Join the Differently Wired Hub.

I don't have any formal diagnosis, beyond a sixth form schoolmate introducing me to an acquaintance as "one of our more autistic members". I do know that things 'normal' people enjoy like nightclubs and football matches are my idea of hell, and that machine beeps and chimes are hard wired into my brain to a greater degree than 'normal' people.
In my working life, I don't think this has had a major impact, it is something you learn to live with and compensate for. The one scenario where I do feel that it might have counted against me was in my IET Registration interviews, hence my query about Turing & Tesla. I've been a design consultant largely running my own firm for over thirty years, and yet have twice received poor outcomes from these interviews. Candidates are told that they will be interviewed by people like themselves, presumably in my case designers from small firms, but I have my doubts in this respect, and the IET is unwilling to divulge any details of the interviewing panels.
I really don't know how the IET could adjust this process to aid candidates like me, which is why I was interested to see the report, but this appears to solely address industry, as far as I can see. I don't have answers, but it would be good to think that the IET might be taking a good look in the mirror whilst it is giving industry guidance.

This is a difficult one, and not something that can really be discussed here, in that it all depends on why you where unsuccessful at interview - which could be for completely different reasons. Although there is a level of confidentiality around this, if you used a PRA they have full access to the interview notes which can be very telling (occasionally it can be interesting as a PRA having to tell candidates things they really don't want to hear!) The interview results are relatively black and white, they are based on whether the candidate shows each of the competences. If a candidate is failed mainly on competence D then that might be a flag here - however it would (I can very much see both sides of this one) be a discussion of whether their communication skills met that required for effective communication of engineering matters, as opposed to whether their communication met the expected approach by the panel (which I agree could be inappropriate).

In a completely different context I was discussing this week the challenge of how do you know when you need to monitor for a problem, because monitoring for a problem is expensive, so to justify that expense you need to show that there is a problem, but you don't know if you have a problem unless you are monitoring for it...  However, IF candidates came forward with evidence that (e.g.) they are clearly communicating effectively in the workplace, but were rejected at interview for poor communication (which, as mentioned, the PRA will know) then they may have grounds for appeal which may in turn cause the process to be reviewed.

However, I would not suggest at all following the path of "who are these interviewers". The interviewers are not assessing whether you are competent to work in your particular field, they are assessing whether you meet the UK-SPEC criteria. It's certainly easier to assess someone when you have some understanding of their technical and business fields, e.g. management responsibility in a small business is different to management responsibility in a multinational, technical responsibility in fast changing consumer goods is different to technical responsibility in slow moving utilities industries. But it's pretty unlikely that the majority across the panels will be not capable of doing so.

As I suggest above, there are many, many people showing autistic spectrum traits - sometimes very severely - who get through interview successfully every year. (I work a business where CEng is a requirement for all senior staff, trust me, we have quite a few who are either self or professional diagnosed! Safety critical rail engineering is the epicentre of the Venn diagram for the autistic spectrum...)  And as a PRA I work with many failed candidates, who have failed for many reasons, But all the reasons I've seen have been that, in form or another, they have not demonstrated to the assessors that they exhibit the UK competences - very often because they've misunderstood what the assessors are looking for.

Maybe it's too far in the past now to be possible (you didn't say when your "poor results" were from), but if the latest one was recent I cannot suggest strongly enough finding out what the reason actually was, then it will be clearer to you (and the IET) whether this may have been related to any non-competence related issue. But certainly never assume you know what the reason was, I cannot offhand think of a time when I've had a failed candidate referred to me where the reason they assumed they were unsuccessful turned out to be the actual reason they were unsuccessful.

Hope that makes sense,

Andy

I have a degree of dyspraxia, self- diagnosed as when I was born it was not a recognised condition.  Like most with a similar condition, over the years I have adopted a number of strategies that make it nearly undetectable (except to my wife!).  I welcomed and embraced computers and word processors with spelling and grammar checks.

I am contributing from a personal point of view, not for the IET.  I am a volunteer in the Registration process and very familiar with the assessment and interview procedure, all of which is carried out by volunteers.  The people involved in any application are chosen to have expertise in the areas of the applicant’s experience.  A perfect match is not possible of course but we are well trained and experienced.   The interview is the only stage where the applicant is met face-to-face.  Allowance may be made at the interview IF you let them know in advance what your difficulty is.

As Andy said, it helps to have the advice and guidance of a PRA, both to prepare your application and to prepare for the interview.   At the end of the day the interviewers have to assess against the UKSpec competences of which communication is one; but one that impinges on all the others.  If you did have a PRA then speak to them if you want to know more detail of your interview results, otherwise you should have an indication in your letter which competences were weakest.

David

I would agree in hindsight that a good and local PRA should make a big difference, I feel that if I'd had this prior to my first attempt I'd probably have passed. The second interview was less well conducted, some sort of disruption as we were getting started, and an anonymous third person present whom I I later learned was a trainee interviewer. Attaining a PRA was a problem, I was assigned someone in the south east whilst I'm in Norfolk, and I recall engineers on RAF Marham telling me that they faced the same problem. To a large extent I think any such interview is a selling exercise, in this case selling your own abilities, and this is something largely alien to someone like myself - even after over 30 years in business I've never really had to channel my inner salesman. 

I was secretary of our local IET network for eight years, and a volunteer for even longer, so I was curious as to how this neurodiversity exercise would influence IET procedures. I've not found the IET particularly responsive to membership needs. Anyway, it is all water under the bridge now, although if asked I would certainly recommend that new candidates locate a good and local PRA.