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This guide will help you prepare for your video assessment to upgrade to Chartered Fellow. It’ll also give you an idea of what to expect from the professional discussion.

Before preparing for an Upgrade Assessment, make sure you’ve:

  • Completed the upgrade readiness checker
  • Received confirmation of your eligibility via email
  • Booked your professional discussion slot.

Also, don’t forget to submit your CV or career summary at least seven days before your discussion.

Reasonable adjustments

If you need adjustments to the assessment process, including considerations for recent career breaks due to family leave, please contact our Membership Upgrading team:

 

How we'll run your professional discussion

Key information

  • Duration: Approximately 60 minutes.
  • Setting: Choose a quiet, private space that allows you to focus.
  • Confidentiality: Any sensitive information shared is only used to assess your suitability for Chartered Member status.
  • Screen-sharing: Not permitted (this is to ensure a consistent candidate experience).

Important!

We'll assess your workplace examples from the last five years. Please ensure they fall within this timeframe.

What we'll ask in your professional discussion

Your professional discussion focusses on four key areas. Here are the questions you'll be asked and the examples you need to prepare for a successful outcome.

Question 1: Work

Tell me how your organisation’s vision and strategy shape your people strategy.

We may also ask you about

  • How your organisation’s vision and strategy shapes your people strategy.
  • The external influences and trends impacting your organisation.
  • What opportunities and risks to the business/operating model does the organisation face.
  • How you’ve contributed to the organisation’s strategy.

Question 2: People 

How have you developed and implemented a new people strategy that has created long-term value for your organisation (or the profession)?

We may also ask you about

  • The wider implications of your strategy and how you took that into account.
  • What evidence and insight you drew on to help develop your people strategy.
  • How you used your knowledge of a range of people practices to develop an integrated people strategy which aligned with the wider business needs.
  • Evidence that your people strategy created long-term value for stakeholders. (You can use either quantitative or qualitative evidence or a range of both.)

Question 3: Change

Tell us about a time when you’ve taken a leading role in long term organisational change.

We may also ask you about

  • How you made sure the change was implemented and sustained over the long term.
  • What ethical perspectives you needed to consider. And how ethics informed your decision making.
  • How you used your understanding of how people experience change to create an organisational culture that was change-ready’.
  • How you pre-empted or managed resistance and/or challenge from senior stakeholders.
  • Your evidence to show the long-term impact of this organisational change (You can use either quantitative or qualitative evidence or a range of both.)

Question 4: Your professional development

Please share an example of how you’ve built the capability of other people professionals. And/or how you’ve contributed to the development of the people profession?

We may also ask you about

  • An example of how you connect with other senior people professionals and leaders to shape your people agenda.

 

How to prepare your examples

What we mean by people practices

'People practices' refer to the work you do as part of your people role. This includes the processes and approaches used across the employee lifecycle, as outlined in the Profession Map.

For example:

  • Recruiting people
  • Managing grievances
  • Analysing people data
  • Carrying out a learning needs analysis
  • Creating talent pools
  • Developing people policies.

What we mean by 'impact'

'Impact' refers to the value your work creates for stakeholders not the output of your work.

It’s not the ‘what’, but the ‘so what’.

For example, an output of your work might be that you've developed a new approach to performance management. But the value created is that managers are now having more focused development discussions, and employees feel the culture is more positive.

You can evidence impact in two ways:

  • Data and metrics that show the measurable value. For example: 
    productivity measures, engagement survey results, absence data.
  • Other evidence that demonstrates change has taken place. For 
    example: feedback from focus groups, skills gaps now being met, senior 
    team regularly reviews performance.

We'd expect most work at Chartered Fellow level to use metrics as part of measuring impact, but this is dependent on what changes you're delivering. The timescales and scope of the impact we expect to see are:

  • Long-term value for organisations or the profession. This means value that is sustained over a period of years. The impact of your work is likely to fundamentally change the thinking around people (think of it as a mindset shift), with a significant effect on the organisation, sector, or profession.

In your professional discussion, you'll need to talk about the 'so what' - the impact of your work and provide evidence, such as:

  • Value/benefits created for stakeholders and the scale/scope of this value
  • Feedback from key stakeholder groups
  • People, organisation, commercial measures (before and after)
  • Business indicators or data (before and after)
  • Cost savings.

Other information

Terms and conditions

Please refer to the CIPD’s upgrade terms and conditions.

Support

If you've any questions contact our membership upgrading team on +44(0)20 8612 6238 (09:00 17:30 UK time, Monday to Friday), or email us at memupgrading@cipd.co.uk.