Enhanced Professional Interview Process ?

Did you see that sentence appearing in the IEM website recently ?  Well, IEM is dead serious in having a new Professional Interview process.  Some files obtained from IEM's website are available here for your information.

Filling in Your Application Form

Filling in Your Application Form

This post is about some aspects on filling in your IEM Application Form i.e. your application to become a Corporate Member of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia.  The title may give the impression that it is a trivial and mundane task and due to this impression, many applicants get rejected.  Let’s focus on what may possibly go wrong in the Application Form process.

Nicking a Corporate Member’s Report

In the new form that is implemented since September 2007, the applicant is required to submit their Training and Experience Report.  This report shall not be discussed in detail here but the problem with the report is that many candidates are so very eager to obtain their Professional Status that some resorted to obtaining a copy of their Senior Engineers’ or newly elected Corporate Members’ Training and Experience Report and copy them.  Perhaps in future, serious disciplinary actions could be imposed upon these sorts of unethical actions.  This sort of unhealthy practice usually occurs when the candidate(s) came from a medium to large organisation and access to a copy from his or her seniors is easy.  Please don’t risk it.  English may not be your first language but no matter what, you should not copy and nick sentences off from your senior’s report.  My advice is that if you really need to copy, do change the words and make your own sentences.  The best would be to write something original.  It is weird how one cannot describe one’s own experience in words where this experience is supposed to be personal and experienced by oneself and not from a senior’s report.

Experience Shortcut

Some design engineers may have lots of design office experience but perhaps no site experience.  If you do not have site experience, do ask your superior to put you at the construction site.  Some applicants, even though without any site experience would try their luck by claiming that they have 12 months of site experience.  Similarly, some site experienced engineers would try to claim that they have 12 months of design experience.  This is how your application gets rejected.  Firstly, if you write something not logical and does not substantiate the 12 months (which is the minimum you require), then you could easily get rejected.  There will be a gauge on whether you actually have the 12 months.  If you could justify yourself well, then you should be ok. 

Let’s say you were with a company for one year i.e. 12 months.  You have to justify that you actually carried out 12 months of design work.  For example in Column A, you filled in 1 Jan 2014 to 1 Jan 2015.  It would be quite difficult to justify that you have exactly 12 months of design work experience.  It would be difficult to justify unless your company is giving you job continuously and you have a design task for the whole one year and you did not take any leave whatsoever.  Be honest.  Maybe from 1 Jan 2014 to 1 Jan 2015, you only actually touched design work for 11 months.  But there are also techniques to obtain 12 months in full.  It really depends on your writing.

Making IEM’s Life Difficult

You could make IEM’s life easier by giving out more detail.  Some rejected applicants and some who are about to submit their application forms had approached me and this is the advice I give them: - “Just be very detailed in order to clear all ambiguities”.  Can you imagine a candidate writing the following: -

In Column A, 1 Jan 2014 to 1 Jan 2019

In Column B, 1) Proposed Addition and Alteration to Bungalow on Lot……

                        2) Proposed Demolition and Construction of Existing Building and ….

                        3) Proposed Construction of New 5 Storey Hostel……..

The candidate merely includes the title of the projects.  This will make the life of IEM difficult because IEM cannot guess what you experienced by just stating those titles.  They are not mind readers.  Even if you mentioned that you were involved in the projects, IEM cannot gauge your involvement as they are not psychic.  It would be better if you said that you were involved in the RC design, foundation design, etc.  Even if your Training and Experience Report may have detailed information, your application form should be brief but as detailed as possible too.

The other issue to look out for is the duration of the project.  One could have mentioned that he had been working from beginning of 2014 to end of 2018.  But however, he only listed three projects as illustrated above.  IEM would also be interested to know how many months one spent on a particular project.  Again, IEM cannot be guessing.  So, for each of the projects you mentioned, do include how many months you used for a particular project.

Professional Interview Guidelines

Professional Interview Guidelines
This post is about the Professional Interview Guidelines of the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) and would be useful for Graduate Engineers who are preparing to upgrade themselves to the Member grade.  The Professional Interview Guidelines is available from the Institution of Engineers Malaysia, (Bangunan Ingenieur, Lot 60/62, Jalan 52/4, Peti Surat 223 Jalan Sultan, Petaling Jaya, 46720, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, 46200).  Alternatively, rather than having the hardcopy of Blue (or Pink) Book which your Professional Interviewer may call it, you could just download the Guidelines.  If your Professional Interviewer refers the Guide as the Pink Book, it is probable that he may be having at least 16 years of Professional experience.

The Professional Interview process that you are about to experience is similar to the one conducted by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), United Kingdom previously.  There is a copy of the ICE Professional Interview Guide in the IEM Library but this is not really important as you would be more interested in the IEM Professional Interview Guide instead.  You will have to read through and highlight the important / relevant points in the Professional Interview Guide.

What to Expect During Your Interview

What to expect in a nutshell is described in the guidelines, under Section I) 1. Definition (a) to (e).

 

a) Ability to grasp and apply engineering fundamentals (I have changed the words)

It is surprising to note that some candidates appear for their Interview not knowing what the formula for the Second Moment of Area (Moment of Inertia) for a rectangular / square section.  There were instances where the Candidate could not derive the Maximum Bending Moment for a Simply Supported Beam due to Point Load or Uniformly Distributed Load.  In some cases, the Candidate could not find the deflection at the tip of a bar element subjected to an axial load, given the Young's Modulus, Cross Sectional Area, Length and the applied force.  Please do not give excuses like, "I have forgotten", "I did not prepare for this Interview" or similar excuses because Fundamentals such as these can never be forgotten unless you have amnesia.

                                                Engineering Fundamentals

 

b) Ability to communicate clearly both orally and in writing

There will be two documents your Interviewers most likely would focus on.  Your Training & Experience Report and your Project Report.  It would be wise to leave no room for the Interviewer to doubt that you do not possess engineering fundamentals.  For me, during my Professional Interview, I left no room for my Interviewers to question me.  I submitted my project and the project was carried out using self-written Structural Analysis and Structural Design.  Since I wrote how the Structural Analysis program works, my Interviewers admitted to me during the start of my Interview that they had not touched the technical information I presented for sometime.  Of course I was (am) still able to elaborate the method of analysis adopted in the programs.  

Remember that after your interview, you would need to carry out essay writing.  It is advisable that you brush up your English by involving yourself in writing Letters, Reports, etc.  Do it for a good one or two years.  There had been cases where the Candidates know how to answer but due to their poor command of English, they couldn't express themselves.  In some instances, the Candidates did not answer the question.  Remember, communication is a two way process - Question / Answer - Interviewer / Interviewee.  If you did not understand the question, answered wrongly or could not express yourself, then you do not possess the ability to communicate.

c) Demonstration of ethical judgement in the conduct of all works
From my point of view, most Professional Interviewers would only test your ethical judgement during the written examination.  That is good news for you.  But always come prepared !  You will never know during your Interview, you may arrive in a situation where after being bombarded with Technical questions here and there, the Interviewer realises a scenario where your ethical judgement is possibly put to test and that's where he takes opportunity to question you.

d) Ability to accept professional responsibility and e) Awareness of engineering sustainability, health and safety issues
Similar to c), most likely the Professional Interviewer would focus more on your reports.  Again, there is no guarantee that he may not question you during the Interview.

Good luck.