Got any professional letters after your name?

I’m blue

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Hoping to get some

Yes? They prove I have a competency in a professional capacity, no?

MBBCh MRCPH PhD

They have come in handy from time to time. No more for the foreseeable future though.

Hey man, it’s your industry so you know! I’m just interested really.

I feel like there maybe aren’t loads of professions you’d use physics in. Maybe if I’d ended up in BAE I’d find everyone put that stuff on their signatures.

Similar. They’ve had a half-hearted training scheme in the past which I think basically no-one got any qualifications from. My current role advertised that there’d be training support for professional recognition, and there wasn’t. They’ve recently signalled an intent to relaunch the training scheme. No financial support or incentive, or specific in-house career benefit at the end of it, though. The main benefit, as far as I can tell, other than personal satisfaction, would be as a get out of jail card for proving to a private sector recruiter that you don’t fit their stereotype of what a Council employee is.

Heh. The ICE won’t let you have the MICE letters until you’re IEng/CEng or whatever. But the CIHT will let you have MCIHT before you’re IEng/CEng. So, in light of my employer’s faffing with getting anyone qualified via the former, I joined the latter, and bagged me some sweet sweet post-nominals without really doing anything other than pay subs. But I’ve never actually used them.

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cal ROMancE

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Yeah - MRTPI is a necessity in the private sector and most decent employers will mentor you and structure your work to push you through it at the first opportunity (2yrs post qualification), cos it demonstrates to their clients that you’re a proper professional. Which I get.

Imagine it used to be different in the public sector tbh but since very few employees there pay fees now they don’t ask for it, just that you’re eligible (which is a bit of a cheat and probably unfair on the professional institution who has to maintain those standards, but anyway)

It is actually quite a lot of work too - written submissions on experience that have to demonstrate skills and an understanding of professional ethics and aims for future development etc etc

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Do you mean ‘employers’ rather than ‘employees’? I wouldn’t expect the public sector to cover professional fees, but I am surprised at how devalued it’s seemingly become.

Having said that, my dad was one of those local authority MRTPIs who used to write to the magazine a lot…

Why not, out of interest?

Not that I’ve a hugely strong feeling either way, accustomed as I am to buying all my own stationery etc, rather than expecting even that to be provided. My expectations have duly been managed. :grinning:

If they’re having trouble recruiting, then I can see the argument for it, but as guntrip says, local councils don’t (yet) have to compete for work, and having a few letters after your name on its own doesn’t make any difference to your ability to do the job.

It would be different if there was an equivalent of the GMC or ARB mandating registration.

Don’t even use mine on my CV, tempted to let them lapse given that I get charged £400 a year to remain a member and don’t really get much benefit for that. I have the ones for my qualification and then some more I got for working in a certain professional field for a bit.

A load of weirdos at my current employment put their undergrads on their email signature which always feels a bit #smalltime

Employers yes. I know almost nobody pays them know, I just wondered if they did in the pre-2010 days. I worked in local government then and it was pretty flush with cash.

I’ll ask my dad, but I think he paid for his himself (acknowledging that public sector workers used to get pay rises back then, too)

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I think they kinda are having trouble recruiting. But the vague carrot of a ‘training scheme’ seems to be their preferred option at present.

Plus, the rigidity of the pay grades etc seems to mean that it’s a bit of a nightmare for any* form of remuneration or financial payment to ever be made if it sits outside of the banding system.

*This extends to using public transport for work stuff, with an expenses process so Byzantine that it’s effectively not a thing.

Bsc, Ssc, Gsc.

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I hereby grant you all with:

GBOLs

:magic_wand:

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and @guntrip

When I worked in local authority (admittedly some time ago now) the Council always paid my RTPI membership fees.

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Can confirm that the public sector does not remotely cover GMC fees.

I know, but doctors earn considerably more than their equivalent level planners, and it’s priced into their salary, so to speak.

(do private employers cover GMC/BMA fees?)