Career Manager Quick Guide for Students Contents Career Manager benefits for students...2 Logging into IET Career Manager.3 CV Building 4 UK-SPEC and Professional Registration 5 Competence Assessment.5 Setting Objectives and Actions for Professional Registration...9 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) 10 Recording your CPD objectives and Actions 11 Creating a Professional Development Plan Report.13 Adding your CPD Activities. 13 Producing a CPD Activity Report..17
Career Manager benefits for students An Introduction by Dick Bacon CEng FIET Getting comfortable with using Career Manager while you are at University is a smart move. It will enable you to demonstrate to prospective employers that you are taking your professional development seriously and relating your development to the standard engineering competence framework (UK-SPEC) provided by the Engineering Council as the benchmark for Professional Registration. In other words it will enhance your employability. Career Manager is a fully featured professional development competence recording and planning tool that can support you throughout your engineering career. Using Career Manager while at University is a fantastic opportunity to enable you to develop valuable skills in recording your competence development in the appropriate language, in addition to building a master CV record. By getting used to recording your skills in competence descriptive language, you will soon become accomplished at it. You will then be ready to start documenting your career development in the IET s preferred format for Professional Registration as a Chartered or Incorporated Engineer, or as an Engineering or ICT Technician as soon as you leave University. Your time at University is preparation for the start of your chosen career in engineering, beginning by achieving academic recognition through the award of your degree, then by gaining engineering employment, followed by gaining professional experience and competence in your first job. After capturing your development evidence over a few years in employment and finally having gained a technically responsible position, you could be ready to apply for Professional Registration as the final acknowledgement of your professional achievement. Career Manager can support you through each of these stages. It will even support you beyond Professional Registration when you will be engaging in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) which can be recorded and declared to the IET in Career Manager. The UK-SPEC Framework benchmarks skill levels against five competence groups labelled A, B, C, D and E. The competences in groups C, D and E are organisational, presentational and professional skills which can be demonstrated during your time at University, both during course work and by volunteering in extracurricular Societies. Even the technical knowledge and technical practice of competence groups A and B can be described by recording evidence of academic achievements from term exams and lab work. Clearly the activities you document at University will be able to be replaced with more compelling and appropriate employment examples as you begin your first engineering job, but you will have mastered the process. There are various opportunities using a Career Manager guest ticket for mentors, tutors or lecturers to engage with you and your Career Manager records for example, to review development reports or competence assessments via guest ticket functionality. Alternatively, most of the reports from the tool can also be exported into Word or pdf format and shared via email. So, having become accomplished at using Career Manager at University, you will now be ready to use the evidence and records you have generated to illustrate your professionalism as you apply for your first engineering job. The personal record that you will have created in Career Manager will form the basis of a master CV record that can be updated as your career develops. Even at this point the Career Manager CV is a great platform from which to launch a job application and you can also attach your Career Manager competence evidence to further illustrate your professionalism. The next most important thing you can do if you haven t already done it, is to sign on to the IET s Graduate Advantage programme and submit a Career Manager Intent to Register which unlocks the benefits of the IET s IPD service. This provides guidance and support through regular e-mails and prompts to regularly review your competence records and development plans. You will also have access to an exclusive IET on-line community where you can exchange views with others at the same stage of development as yourself. All IET members have full access to Career Manager, our online professional development planning and recording tool. By the way there are Quick Guides on our Career Manager website for all of the common user journeys and also pre-recorded instructional webinars if you prefer a more visual learning style. Provided you have logged on to the IET website as a member and have a Username and Password, you can start using Career Manager straightaway. So, DON T DELAY START TODAY! www.theiet.org/career-manager
Logging into IET Career Manager 1. Visit and log-in to the IET website at www.theiet.org/careermanager Career Manager can be accessed via the membership tab. 2. Once you have logged into your MyIET account, using your website username and password. Select Go to Career Manager to enter the tool.
CV Building Produce a CV by entering information in the Personal Details Section under the My Account tab. Fill out all of the information within your personal details area, such as any placements or work experience you have undertaken. Some information will be carried over from your MyIET account; please check this is current and correct. Once completed, you can export a copy of your CV into a MS Word or PDF format.
UK-SPEC and Professional Registration If you aspire to be professionally registered in the future, you can start logging your experience and evidence against the UK-SPEC competence framework for your desired professional registration category CEng/IEng/EngTech or ICTTech. You can use the levelled guidance to identify areas you can work on to develop your competence. If you partake in a year in industry, this is a great place to log the projects you have worked on to start familiarising yourself with the competence frameworks, and understand how you can meet the next skill level. How to undertake a Professional Registration Competence Assessment 1. Selecting IPD from the Quick Launch Tool to the right of the home page displays a list of various IPD options. Select Assess my competence for Professional Registration TIP: You can also access the assessment my using the tab My Development > Professional Registration Assessment:
2. If you haven t already done so, select a registration framework that you would like to assess your competence against. If you have already selected a category in the Application area, this will already be selected. Select Assess you can see at a glance your assessed level to easily identify areas you may wish to develop.
1. Choose a level in which you feel accurately represents your degree of expertise in the selected skill. 2. Use the text box to enter your evidence or supporting information under each statement. This should consist of your relevant job experience and training to support your assessed level. The skill details are there to outline the expected activities and behaviours of someone at this skill level. 3. Repeat this action with every statement to create a full competence assessment. 4. Once you have completed a full Professional Registration Competence Assessment, you can send this to your mentor or lecturer to verify your assessment. This will allow you to gain another perspective on your competence, and valuable feedback to enable you to move forward with your development.
5. Go back to the main Professional Registration Assessment screen My Development > Assessment Manager > Professional Registration Assessment and select Archive. This will take a snapshot of your assessment and enable you to keep a copy in your archives. You are able to update the original as and when you feel your competence has improved, or at regular intervals, for example, as part of a company professional development scheme. You can enter an archive name of your choice and add comments as appropriate. TIP: You can archive up to 28 assessments. If you need to archive any more you will need to delete any that are no longer required, but you can first export them and save them locally if you wish to keep a copy. 6. Once you have archived your assessment, select the Archive and Verification tab to access your archives. This section will allow you to add up to two verifiers and to view and export your Assessment Summary Report. 7. Select Add Verifier and enter the name of your verifier along with their email address. Repeat this action if you wish to add an additional verifier. 8. Once your verifiers are added you will be able to generate a guest ticket to allow them access to your competence assessment, where they can provide their verification and feedback.
Setting Objectives and Actions for Professional Registration Use this functionality to create objectives and actions and link them to your professional registration competence assessment. This will enable you to structure your development and identify what you need to do to reach your desired level of competence for professional registration. How do I set my Objectives and Actions? 1. Select the My Development tab and select Development Planning under the Development Manager section. 2. This will display three tabs along the left hand side. Select Development Planning to take you to the Development Objectives & Actions page. 3. Check that the Objective type: box displays UK-SPEC. TIP: Only assessed competences will show for you to set objectives and actions against. You do not need to have your assessment verified in order for you to add objectives against your competences. 4. You will notice your self-assessed levels will be displayed in orange, your objective levels will be in white. You can select Set Objectives and create an objective for any level. 5. Once you have selected Set Objectives you can enter the information required into the box, this will create your objective. 6. Once you have entered your desired objectives you can add actions by selecting Add Action. TIP: You can add as many actions to your objectives as you need.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) What is CPD? Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the process of developing and maintaining competence; a set of recognised skills needed to reliably perform the occupation of your choice. It drives you to improve your skills and progress into new roles and keeps you employable throughout your working life. Planning and recording your CPD can make you stand out from all the other graduates, to show your commitment to the profession and your dedication to continually improve your current skills. What are the benefits of CPD? CPD is the key to managing your career it s how you keep up-to-date with current practice, and it drives you to improve your skills and progress into new roles, and keeps you employable throughout your working life. CPD will help you to: Achieve your goals efficiently; Keep pace with changing technology; Achieve recognition; Stay ahead in the job market; Develop leadership skills and help to influence others; Provide evidence of competence when it is require; Demonstrate commitment to your profession. Within Career Manager you can plan and record your CPD activities, and produce attractive reports to show to potential employers to show how you have kept up-to-date with the profession.
Recording your CPD objectives and Actions 1. Select CPD within the Quick Launch Tool and choose CPD Planning. 2. Go to Development Planning on the left hand side of the page. You can then add a folder and select a name. e.g. 2017 CPD. Remember these will be set in the future. 3. Once you have added your folder, select the desired folder you wish to add your objectives in to. 4. Add your objective name. This is will be the outcome of what you wish to learn. You can then add the status, start and target date and a description of the objective. TIP: Typically Objectives should be overarching broad things that you want to achieve.
5. Once you have added your objective, you can add actions against it to create a plan of how you will achieve your objective. Choose one of the TWAVE options; Training, Work Experience, Academic Study, Volunteering or Events/Seminars. TIP: You can record as many actions against your objective as you like. TIP: Once you have completed an action you can copy it to your CPD record. TIP: Once you have added your actions, you can create a Professional Development Plan report to share with your lecturer, mentor or keep for your own records.
Creating a Professional Development Plan Report 1. From the Quick Launch Tool > CPD link, select Manage my CPD Planning Report you can select the dates in which you wish to report to and from. This will create your report from the timeframes you have specified. 2. If you choose to share your report, you can add your verifier details and generate a guest ticket. This will provide your verifier with one time access to your report to provide feedback. 3. Click Create Report. You can give it a name and select a date range in which you can view your planned objectives
4. You can view report to export a copy (word or pdf.) Alternatively, select Complete Report should you wish to send a snapshot to your line manager/mentor etc. Adding your CPD Activities 1. Selecting the CPD menu from the Quick Launch Tool to the right of the home page displays a list of various CPD options. Select > Record my CPD Activities to record your CPD activities against four of the six categories: work experience volunteering events and seminars self-study TIP: Training courses and Academic study should ideally be recorded in your personal profile as they would generally form part of your CV information. These areas can also be accessed from the CPD quick launch menu, and the information recorded for each of these categories will also be pulled through into your CPD Activity Reports. 1. To record a CPD activity, first create a folder to categorise your activities e.g. CPD Activities 2017.
2. Add your activities, recording the name, description, type, start date and target completion date together with the number of CPD hours for the activity. TIP: If you are recording your activities retrospectively, you can select the status to Completed and add your completion date. 3. Once you have added a CPD Activity, it will display in the CPD Activities table. TIP: Clicking on the Activity link will display a quick-look at the Activity description and creation date. Click again to hide.
3. If you need to edit a completed activity, you can set the status to in progress which will allow you to edit the activity. *Remember to change the status back once you have completed the editing. 4. Add a reflection statement for each activity. This is important to record the knowledge you have gained and the skills you have developed from your CPD activities. Consider these points: What did you learn? What went well? What could have been done differently? Did it meet your needs? How has it impacted the way you work? Are there any follow-up actions?
Producing a CPD Activity Report CPD activity reports can be accessed from the My Reports tab: Or from the CPD Quick Launch tool: 1. Your CPD Activity Report will display a summary of all CPD Activities, Training, and Education, completed within your chosen date range. Your Detailed CPD Activity Report shows a greater level of detail including your description and reflection statements. Simply select the dates you want to report on and the type of report you want to create and click Go.
Export to either MS Word or PDF. Use your CPD Activity Reports for your own records and to demonstrate your CPD to your employer, colleagues and clients. This information can also help you to prepare for your appraisals, a Professional Registration, Membership or Fellowship application or a job interview.