Now I’ve got the terrible puns out the way… I first became aware of the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF) back in 2014, towards the end of my university degree at Myerscough College.
To be honest, at the time, I didn’t for a second think that becoming chartered was a realistic nor achievable target for me to accomplish within the next 5 years. That said, it soon became clear once I’d started working that I wanted to become chartered to demonstrate my competency and level of ability to clients and colleagues.
The Preparations
When I started work at Wharton back in 2016, we discussed the ICF Chartership program and I decided to attend the ‘Preparing for Professional Membership Entry (PME)’ event in Telford, Shropshire. The event told me everything I needed to know about the application process and made me realise that Chartership was indeed achievable!
I cannot recommend these events enough for anyone who is considering becoming chartered. For me, the PME event made the whole application process much clearer and I left knowing exactly what was required from me.
What’s involved in a PME?
To kick the process off, I immediately began compiling my work log. I started by creating a spreadsheet, breaking it down into the specific criteria outlined by the ICF. Fortunately, I have always kept very detailed timesheets and diaries, which were invaluable when calculating the hours spent on specific tasks and projects. By using the spreadsheet, I could then review each criterion to ensure that I had fulfilled the requirements before uploading it onto the ICF ‘Members’ Area’.
Although the ICF ‘Members’ Area’ is easy to use, it is a little outdated and can make working out your total hours in each section a little confusing. Personally, I found using the spreadsheet a much simpler approach, one that was adopted by my colleagues too.
One error I made, that I hadn’t appreciated from the PME prep-event or guidance document, was that only 8 competencies could be recorded against each project. When the time came to upload my data, I had recorded as many 14 competencies on some projects. Suffice to say, it was a little more of a frantic dash for the finish than I had initially hoped.
The Critical Analysis!
The Critical Analysis is of course one of the main focuses of the application and for me, it was completely different to anything I had written before. I am fortunate to work for a Director who, a few years previously had been through this same process, and although much of the application had changed, the critical analysis was one key element that remained the same.
To that end, I discussed a variety of different topics with my Director and opted for a site I had been working on that had had a variety of issues in the recent past. I was aware that many Critical Analyses often fail to evaluate their own performance and tend to focus on more holistic elements of the case. The option I chose provided me with the opportunity to deliver a well-rounded analysis of my own performance, critically looking at both the good and bad aspects of the actions I took.
I spent significant time on the critical analysis, reviewing it repeatedly until I felt it was an accurate and honest reflection of what happened and how I dealt with it. I then elected for a wide range of people to review it, providing feedback and comments to ensure that the process I had gone through and the impacts of each decision I made were clear to the assessors.
The Interview
After several months in a state of anticipation, I finally received an invitation to attend an interview in Edinburgh in November 2018. Dusting off my suit, I headed to Scotland with my Line Manager and Director. I will admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the interview. However, on arrival, the ICF team instantly made me feel at ease with their friendly and welcoming manner.
The hour-long interview flew past. We discussed my Critical Analysis, going over the results and what I wanted to achieve in the future. For me, it was a really helpful process to gain the insight of others in the industry (outside of the company) and see how they would have handled the scenario of my Critical Analysis.
Time to celebrate
I received an envelope containing my Professional Membership and confirmation that I had completed the PME process the day before my 30th birthday, in December 2018 – what a present! I was also in the very fortunate position to be flying to Singapore 5 days later… You can read all about my thoughts on that experience here...
In conclusion, I would highly recommend Chartership to anyone considering it. I found the process to be incredibly insightful and a great challenge to work towards.
