Founder member of FECMA

Advancing the credit profession

Guide to Applying for CICM Professional Membership

THE APPLICATION PROCESS

STEP 1:                 DECIDE ON LEVEL OF MEMBERSHIP AND METHOD OF ASSESSMENT

STEP 2:                 PREPARE YOUR APPLICATION/EVIDENCE

STEP 3A:              ONLINE APPLICATION FORM

STEP 4:                 AFTER SUBMISSION/RESULTS

The purpose of the application process is to establish if your experience meets the membership requirements for either Associate, Member or Fellow of the CICM.

You’ll need to demonstrate your experience by sharing specific examples of your recent work, clearly showing how they match the membership requirements.

STEP 1: DECIDE ON LEVEL OF MEMBERSHIP AND METHOD OF ASSESSMENT

Please refer to the full criteria for more detail, these questions are designed to help you make the initial decision on which level to apply for.

WHICH LEVEL OF MEMBERSHIP?

Am I ready to apply for Associate membership?

  • Do you have consistent evidence of working in a credit/collections dept. over about 3 years?
  • Can you evidence examples of you managing debts and risks, assessing customer profiles, advising colleagues on credit policies?
  • Is most of your focus on day to day activity, with some planning/projects that reach 6-12 months?

Am I ready to apply for Membership of the CICM?

  • Do you have consistent evidence of managing the credit cycle in an organisation over a period of about 5 years?
  • Can you evidence examples of working with other departments, developing credit/collections policies and procedures, managing customer credit files?
  • Do you work to timescales of around 12-18 months (such as planning business activity over a financial year or managing long projects)?
  • Can you demonstrate your commercial understanding of your organisation?

Am I ready to apply for Fellowship of the CICM?

  • Do you have evidence of developing, delivering and implementing wide-reaching and long-term credit strategy?
  • Can you evidence the impact of this strategy through evaluation of business outputs such as business metrics, financial measures?
  • Can you evidence examples such as advising the organisation on all aspects of credit/risk management, leading credit-related projects, developing and implementing a quality scorecard, monitoring the organisation’s overall credit/collections performance?
  • Do you work to timescales of 2 years or longer?

Now review the full requirements in step 2: Preparing your application.

 

Online application:

Simply access the online application form.

STEP 2:  PREPARE YOUR APPLICATION/EVIDENCE

Once you have decided on which level you would like to apply for, ensure you are very familiar with the membership requirements.

The full requirements for Associate member

The full requirements for Member

The full requirements for Fellow 

 

Prepare your evidence documents:

When you submit your application you need to upload the following documents.   Please upload these at the same time as completing your online submission.

  1. CV (compulsory)
  2. Organisation chart (if available/optional)
  3. Role profile (if available/optional)
  4. Other relevant evidence documents (optional)
  5. CPD logs (or complete the CPD questions on the form)

Your CV:

Please ensure your CV covers details of the following:

  • Employment dates
  • The roles you have held and the organisations you’ve worked for – or clients you’ve worked with if you are a consultant.
  • Key accountabilities, responsibilities and achievements for your current and previous roles.

Please make it clear on your CV where you have experience that meets the membership Mandatory and Additional Requirements.

Send the Sponsor Comments form to your sponsors:

When you submit your application,  you will be asked to confirm that you have sent the Sponsor Comments form link to your Sponsors and given them a deadline of one week. Click here for the Sponsor forms: Associate, Member, Fellow.

Who can be my sponsor?

If you are applying for Associate, we will require one sponsor. For Member and Fellow applicants, we will require two sponsors.

The sponsor should be someone who you work with who can give examples of your recent work and impact it’s had.  This should be your line manager or a client.  Your second sponsor should be a peer at work or previous line manager.

If you have a team working for you, please do not ask them for a sponsor statement in this circumstance, as it’s unlikely they will showcase your skills and experience as well as your manager, peers or clients. If it is not possible for your manager to support your application you may ask a suitable alternative, please provide reasons why when you submit your application.

It is not necessary for sponsors to be a CICM member.

NB: Your application is not complete and cannot be assessed until all sponsor comments are received.

STEP 3A: COMPLETE AND SUBMIT YOUR ONLINE APPLICATION FORM

During your online submission you will be asked to upload your evidence, so please have these saved somewhere ready. You can access the online application form here.

In this application form, you will be asked to write a statement outlining how you meet the criteria.  You need to provide specific work-based examples of the impact of your role. We would recommend an answer of about 400 words here.

Hint: you can prepare/write your answer in Word and copy and paste into the form if you find this easier.

The examples you provide must be drawn predominantly from the last three, four, five, seven years (depending on the level you are applying for). They can be from an organisation you are employed by (or have been recently employed by), or from organisations you work with as a consultant. Please use as many different examples as possible.

STEP 4:  AFTER SUBMISSION/RESULTS

You will receive the initial results via email within 4 weeks of full submission and payment of assessment fee.

1:  Refer for more information: when the assessors would like to see more evidence or have questions about your submission.  We will provide details and set up a call or email conversation. *

2:  Application successful, to ACICM/MCICM/FCICM

3:  Application unsuccessful this time: we will provide you with an overview of the reasons why, and any recommendations on next steps from the assessor.

* Your application will be kept open/live for 6 months from date of online submission to allow for more information to be provided if requested.  Once 6 months has passed, a new application will need to be processed and a new assessment fee paid.

ASSESSMENT FEE PAYMENT

There is a non-refundable assessment fee for all applications.  Assessment will not take place until the assessment fee is paid.

Online
ACICM £40
MCICM £55
FCICM £70

You can pay by card, cheque or bank transfer.

After you have submitted your application, you will be given instructions on how to pay.  The simplest is by card, call us on 01780 722 903.

You can also pay by bank transfer:

National Westminster Bank
69 Bridge Street
WORKSOP
S80 1DJ

Account number: 84577150

Sort code: 60-24-30

Name: Chartered Institute of Credit Management

 

Please remember to add a clear reference to your payment:

YOUR NAME, MEMBERSHIP NUMBER (if you have one) followed by our reference MEMBASSESS