CEng IMechE Interview

[faisal1988]

Hi All

I have 6yrs of experience in oil & gas as Instrument design Engineer after my Engineering in Instrumentation and control.

I am willing to register myself as chartered engineer(Ceng). Is my experience sufficient?
what all they ask in interviews for an instrumentation Engineer.
How long will it take for me to get it.

Thanks all in advance for your valuable feedback.

[a311]

faisal1988 said:

Hi All

I have 6yrs of experience in oil & gas as Instrument design Engineer after my Engineering in Instrumentation and control.

I am willing to register myself as chartered engineer(Ceng). Is my experience sufficient?
what all they ask in interviews for an instrumentation Engineer.
How long will it take for me to get it.

Thanks all in advance for your valuable feedback.

Each institution has it's own 'pathway' to chartership so I'd visit the website and/or give them a call.

Broadly speaking there are academic and experience criteria, it was changed a while back to require a Masters degree level qualification. There are different membership levels (technician, up to CEng and fellow). I'm a Chemical engineer so can't speak specifically about the institution you're looking to get chartered with.

If you have a degree and masters I wouldn't expect it to take long otherwise they may ask for evidence, written report etc. Not having a degree shouldn't stop you as a load of our design guys just got chartered with IMechE and have HNC but 20 years plus experience.

Hope this helps.

[GadgeS3C]

a311 said:

Each institution has it's own 'pathway' to chartership so I'd visit the website and/or give them a call.

That'd be my advice too.

If you're interested in the IMechE then start here.

Then give the membership folks a call. They are very helpful and will talk you through the application process.

Other institutions will have similar systems and support - they all want your business!

If you are interested in IMechE feel free to PM me, I'm a mentor for them.

[Down2Earth]

Hello all, new to this forum and wanted to share my IMechE Chartership experience.

I came into the interview, admittedly nervous, but fairly confident I will get through it. I was generally satisfied with my answers, speaking passionatly about my work. I left the interview room feeling ok about the whole thing, however, the invigilator (who ensures a fair interview process is conducted) gave a little feedback post the interview, stressing the importance of understanding precisely what the question is and giving direct answers.

This led me to begin to believe I elaborated too much, went off on tangents and may have struggled to give the answers the interviewers wanted, and may have also compromised the time the interviewers may of wanted to explore other areas of my application. Given the level of work I have delivered and the strong technical bias in this work, I am now personally dissapointed in myself and my performance that I may have struggled to give my achievements justice in the interview. There is absolutely nothing I can do now but simply wait, and will then decide what to do once I know the result.

[DuncB7]

Down2Earth said:

Hello all, new to this forum and wanted to share my IMechE Chartership experience.

I came into the interview, admittedly nervous, but fairly confident I will get through it. I was generally satisfied with my answers, speaking passionatly about my work. I left the interview room feeling ok about the whole thing, however, the invigilator (who ensures a fair interview process is conducted) gave a little feedback post the interview, stressing the importance of understanding precisely what the question is and giving direct answers.

This led me to begin to believe I elaborated too much, went off on tangents and may have struggled to give the answers the interviewers wanted, and may have also compromised the time the interviewers may of wanted to explore other areas of my application. Given the level of work I have delivered and the strong technical bias in this work, I am now personally dissapointed in myself and my performance that I may have struggled to give my achievements justice in the interview. There is absolutely nothing I can do now but simply wait, and will then decide what to do once I know the result.

Is there an estimated timescale for getting back to applicants with their result?

I was on a waiting list to do a MPDS for IEng status when I was a graduate engineer, never did get a mentor and left the company. Same story with my 2nd employer. Now with 3rd employer and have just accepted it's not going to happen for me.

Whilst I don't think it will make much difference to my future prospects, I would like to achieve it eventually.

[Down2Earth]

results are published quarterly, and for the IMechE I 'think' this works out to March, June, September and December.

In your circumstance, I would still persevere with IEng. Abandon the MPDS process, go ahead with filling in the IEng application via the 'traditional' route and get hold of a couple of sponsors. Your into your third employer, So I would assume this has come with a bit of experience you have now amassed.

[Karl the Haz]

Hi all, I did my CEng a couple of years ago and since have become a FIMechE. I set up this website/blog on professional experiences to give other candidates a clue what to expect, if it helps let me know:

krgbolton.wordpress.com

I have since mentored a number of colleagues through the process. Good luck and in answer to the first post definitely wear a shirt, tie and jacket!

Karl

[munkul]

Sorry to dig an old thread up...

I've went down the "traditional" route of filling in the application and competence statements etc. I've had the email from the IMechE saying they're ready to give me an interview for CEng.

I'm mainly nervous, because it's not the MPDS scheme and therefore they will be more critical of my application - I suppose mainly to make sure I'm not telling porkies...

This will be a virtual interview via skype/zoom etc due to 'rona. Might be both bad and good? Skype isn't conducive to asking or saying too much, not in my experience over the last few months anyway.

So... top tips from this thread are:
1. know my application and refresh myself on everything I've done
2. wear a suit. Tie? It's not really "me" in a professional setting.

Anything else?

I'm reasonably confident of my abilities/experience as an engineer, not so much technical design, but lots of research and procedure/spec writing.

[cdon]

munkul said:

This will be a virtual interview via skype/zoom etc due to 'rona. Might be both bad and good? Skype isn't conducive to asking or saying too much, not in my experience over the last few months anyway.

So... top tips from this thread are:
1. know my application and refresh myself on everything I've done
2. wear a suit. Tie? It's not really "me" in a professional setting.

Anything else?

I'm reasonably confident of my abilities/experience as an engineer, not so much technical design, but lots of research and procedure/spec writing.

I had my interview a few months ago too also online. It wasn’t too intensive and touched on a number of different projects I had completed. As with the written application the key is to tie any experience in with the competencies necessary for CEng as you will have to demonstrate examples for each.

Remember that all of the accomplishments and project work that you know inside out the interviewer won’t. It will likely be their first time learning about it so they will want to know more about it, rather than being too critical of the details or specifics - that was my experience at least!

If you would wear a suit to the in person interview I would do the same for the video one!

If I think of anything else from my interview I will report back. Good luck!

[Parsnip]

cdon said:

I had my interview a few months ago too also online. It wasn’t too intensive and touched on a number of different projects I had completed. As with the written application the key is to tie any experience in with the competencies necessary for CEng as you will have to demonstrate examples for each.

Remember that all of the accomplishments and project work that you know inside out the interviewer won’t. It will likely be their first time learning about it so they will want to know more about it, rather than being too critical of the details or specifics - that was my experience at least!

If you would wear a suit to the in person interview I would do the same for the video one!

If I think of anything else from my interview I will report back. Good luck!

All great advice. It's been over 4 years since I did mine, so the details are a bit hazy, but if felt like an interview of two parts

50% was me essentially expanding on what my application said (and the interviewer was all over tying it into the competencies) - so knowing the application inside out is handy - have it printed in front of you as well I would say.

The other 50% was me chatting about projects - at the end of the day it is an interview conducted by engineers, rather than a job interview where you may have HR or recruitment bods, so they want to chat about interesting stuff. I think I apologised towards the end for just waffling on about things I had worked on and one of the interviewers said that it was all right and far better than the alternative of not being enthusiastic or able to talk about what you have been up to.

I think one of my guys was a retired O&G Operator type and the other younger guy was on the marine side of things, so while not directly the same as what I do (Offshore drilling and then Subsea stuff) they asked enough starter questions that gave me a window to talk about what I do/did.

I guess if you know what you said in your application and can back it up with evidence, as well as answering/talking through your engineering experience without falling over then you are in pretty good shape.

Good luck - hopefully you gain the privilege to pay increased membership fees

[munkul]

thanks chaps. Can't wait to start paying more

What sort of time frame is it between the interview and finding out if you're successful?