If you have between five and 15 years’ post-graduate engineering experience, follow the process outlined here to apply for your Chartered credential.
If you have more than 15 years’ postgraduate experience, the application process is more streamlined. Learn more about applying for Chartered with 15+ years’ experience.
If you aren’t eligible to apply for Chartered yet, follow the steps laid out on the Chartered page for under five years’ experience and make the next few years count.
Assessment process
Applying for Chartered involves an online and offline process. You’ll need to complete an online self-assessment and then assign industry reviewers of your choice to provide feedback on your skills and abilities.
The assessment also includes providing samples of the work you’ve completed to support your application. Your skills are then assessed against industry benchmarks for technical, management and communication skills.
The process concludes with a professional interview with one of our assessors.
How to apply
Follow these steps to apply for your Chartered credential:
Login to the member portal and take the online self-assessment.
Firstly you’ll need to nominate your occupational category and area of practice or specialisation. You can nominate more than one area of practice. However an area of practice should be the purpose of and the bulk of your work, not an activity or project that’s incidental to your main work.
As you complete the self-assessment, reflect on your career and past work and rate your abilities for each aspect of practice at one of four levels:
Developing – you’re learning and need supervision to practise at an acceptable standard.
Functional – you can act independently at an acceptable standard without help or supervision.
Proficient – your ability to act independently is at a high standard and you can train and supervise others.
Advanced – you can lead teams, train others and act decisively from experience and a very high knowledge base.
Watch a short video about completing the self-assessment.
Follow the steps at the end of your online self-assessment to create an industry review login and complete the industry review.
At this point you’ll need to confirm your area of practice. You can nominate up to three areas of practice only.
Write brief statement of evidence
Think about the projects and work activities you’ve done and the documentation you have to support your self-assessment ratings across the competencies for independent practice aligned to your occupational category.
For each of the competency elements in the industry review, write a brief statement to explain how your evidence demonstrates the particular competency.
Assign industry reviewers
Next, follow the steps to create and assign your reviewers. Your reviewers should ideally be Chartered members of Engineers Australia or an engineering team member with more than seven years’ engineering experience. They should also:
- know you and the work you’ve done
- be in the same area of practice as you
- be willing and able to provide a review based on their knowledge of you.
Tell your reviewers what you’re doing so they expect your review request and know what they need to do. Keep an eye on things and follow-up if you haven’t received a response or if you want to discuss the results.
Watch a short video about the industry review process.
When your industry reviewers have completed their reviews you’ll receive a notification and link to continue to the enrolment stage in the portal. At this point, you’ll also need to have your credit card ready to cover the fee.
Follow the steps to upload and submit:
- your photo identification
- a detailed CV
- records of your continuing professional development (CPD). To qualify for Chartered you must have completed a minimum of 150 hours of CPD over the previous three years. If you have listed more than one area of practice, learn how CPD is calculated for multiple areas of practice.
Watch a short video about what you’ll need to enrol.
Approximately 16 weeks after you’ve uploaded your documentation, an assessor will call you for an evidence discussion. The assessor will discuss your CV and CPD records and the evidence statements in your industry review. They’ll let you know if something is incorrect or if you need to provide anything else.
The assessor will also tell you for which of the 16 elements of competency you’ll need to upload further evidence. At the end of the discussion they’ll send you a discussion summary via the portal. When you’re ready, you’ll be able to upload the relevant evidence to the portal.
Watch a short video about how to provide evidence.
Compile the pieces of evidence that you referenced in your industry review for the areas the assessor specified. Ensure they show how you’ve applied the relevant competencies for your occupational category and area of practice. You can use various forms of evidence including, but not limited to plans, drawings, root cause analysis, modelling, reports, emails, risk assessments or presentations.
The evidence you choose needs to be:
- your own work
- less than 10 years old
- sufficient to demonstrate you’ve met the competency.
In most cases we only require an extract or section of an overall document or image, just enough to show your competency. It’s fine to redact private information as required.
Some of the evidence you provide with your application may be the intellectual property of your employer or past employers. In that case you’ll need to get their permission to use it. Complete the permission request letter (DOCX 16KB) and send it to them. You’ll need to have their permission in writing (email is fine) before you submit your evidence.
Be sure to comply with any conditions imposed by the organisation on how the material is used. You should also acknowledge the source of the material in your application. Engineers Australia will keep the evidence secure and only use it for your assessment. We can also securely destroy any evidence you provide if you ask us to.
Write evidence comments
You’ll also need to write evidence comments about each piece of evidence you upload. These are short explanations between two and four sentences long and should provide background and context. Each one should clearly demonstrate the element of competency and explain precisely what the assessor should consider.
Your evidence will be assessed approximately 16 weeks after you’ve uploaded it. During the assessment, your assessor may make comments or requests in the portal for further information. You’ll receive a notification via email letting you know to action any requests.
If nothing else is required you’ll receive a notification that you’re eligible to proceed to the professional interview stage.
A professional interview with an Engineers Australia assessor is the final step to becoming Chartered. The interview is an opportunity for you to authenticate and elaborate on the evidence you’ve already provided in your application. It’s important that you show you understand the Chartered competencies, the definitions of engineering activities and problems and how these are reflected in your practice.
The assessor will use the interview to gauge the depth and breadth of your engineering knowledge and experience in your area of practice. They’ll also be looking for any further areas of competency you might display.
The interview is also an opportunity for you to demonstrate your commitment to the high ethical and professional standards required of someone with a Chartered credential. You can prepare a short presentation introducing yourself and highlighting the key projects or activities that illustrate your achievements, but this is not compulsory.
You’ll receive an invitation to the online Teams or Skype interview from your assessor. The interview will take between 30 and 60 minutes. Your invitation to attend a professional interview will be between approximately four to six weeks after your evidence assessment.
Watch a short video about the professional interview.
Application outcome
The assessor may tell you the outcome of your Chartered application at the end of the interview, but generally you’ll receive a confirmation email in the member portal after the interview.
If your Chartered application is successful, you’ll also receive your official Chartered certificate in the mail soon after.
Post-nominals
Once you’ve qualified for a Chartered credential, you’ll be able to use a post-nominal after your name. Depending on your occupational category, you’ll gain one of the following post-nominals:
- Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng)
- Chartered Technologist (CEngT) or
- Chartered Associate (CEngA)
Gain recognition
In addition to post-nominals, you can share your Chartered credential as a digital badge to showcase your achievement.
By representing your credential with a verified digital badge, you can demonstrate your professional capability to employers, prospective clients and peers.
The Chartered digital badge is delivered through Credly’s Acclaim platform.
You will receive an email from [email protected]
- Click the button in the email to accept your badge.
- Create a free account on the Acclaim website.
- Claim your badge.
- Upload to your professional social media accounts, use in your email signature, online proposals and digital CV.
Fees
The fee to apply for Chartered is $1870 including GST.
If your membership has lapsed, there is a readmission application fee:
- One to five years: $220 including GST
- More than five years: $365 including GST.
To add an additional area of practice the fee is $365 including GST.
Start the process to get Chartered now.
If you have any questions about credentials or membership, please contact us.