Get Chartered!
By @edent
· bcs CITP Computer Science · 2 comments · 550 words · read ~224 times.
Computing is a comparatively young industry. We don't have hundreds of years of history, or secret societies jealously guarding our knowledge, or much love for hierarchy. This makes it difficult to progress in a world which values strict demarcations between people. There's an obvious and well documented path from Army Private to Sergeant. If you're an architect (the kind that designs buildings) there are various qualifications and bodies to assess your knowledge and seniority.
But computerists? Some of us have academic qualifications - which may or may not be as useful as a bootcamp qualification - and some of us learn from MineCraft mods. There aren't many external bodies which assess or validate our knowledge.
I'm not sure if I'm happy with that situation or not. I do, occasionally, need to prove to an employer that I'm as good as I say I am. Take-home-tests and whiteboard interviews only get you so far, I've found.
So I was curious to see that BCS - the Chartered Institute for IT0 - was offering a discount on its chartering process. This was a chance to have my skills and achievements accredited by someone external. I figured I'd give it a go.
The process and requirements were pretty simple. Mostly filling in some forms explaining what I'd done in my career, how I'd met certain criteria, and evidence of professional development. My self-promotion had to be signed off by someone who knew me professionally and belonged to an organisation which followed a code of conduct. Luckily my boss2 was just such a person. Thanks Martin!
After a bit of waiting, I was delighted to find this in my inbox:
And, just like that, I was listed on their register1
What does this mean?
For me, there are two distinct advantages. Primarily, when applying for jobs which list membership of a professional body, or want evidence of my competence, it will be a strong signifier that I have those things. It shows my commitment to Continuing Professional Development, and that I have achieved some level of distinction in my career.
A secondary benefit is getting to use the post nominals CITP MBCS. ✨Fancy!✨
What can I say? It appeals to my vanity.
Semantic Data
I think the correct way to represent this in Schema.org is using hasCredential
HTML
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Terence Eden",
"hasCredential": {
"@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
"credentialCategory": "CITP",
"recognizedBy": {
"@type": "Organization",
"url": "https://www.bcs.org/"
}
}
}
</script>
Do correct me if I'm wrong.
And finally
-
Formerly the "British Computer Society" ↩︎
-
Amusingly, my registration number also comes up when searching for a Stephen King book ↩︎
Daniel says:
Would be interesting to know how employers view this, especially those outside the UK (or even, in?) - do they change their interview loops to compensate for this, e.g. no more whiteboard sessions etc.
I remember hearing about the BCS back in my university days but since then they've never come up in my career. The ACM/IEEE orgs tend to come up, but only in the sense of membership and on the (extremely rare) occasion I've known people who are recognised as distinguished members https://awards.acm.org/distinguished-members/award-recipients
@Edent Very useful. I've wondered if it was worth it. I'm not bothered about letters after my name but the directory would be handy
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