Experience Assessment FAQs

CIPD membership is globally recognised in the people profession and connects you to a community of over 160,000 members. Membership showcases your knowledge and impact in today’s workplace, whilst demonstrating your commitment to the highest professional standards. 

Whether you're just starting your career or in a senior role, we support your growth. Being a member means we’re here to encourage your development and learning, ensuring you’re professionally recognised for your skills and abilities. 

Membership will also boost your career prospects and earning potential, whilst giving you access to a range of exclusive member benefits. 

The value membership can bring to your career is significant, especially when it comes to job search and promotion opportunities, helping you take the next step in your career.

Use the membership standards to identify which membership grade is right for you. Depending on your level of experience, you can achieve one of the following CIPD membership grades with Experience Assessment:

Associate Membership

For people professionals whose work is operational with some complexity. You’re beginning to contribute your thinking to people issues and solutions.

Chartered Membership

For people professionals who work strategically and operationally with some complexity. You’re actively driving and managing change to meet your organisation’s needs.

Chartered Fellowship

For people professionals who combine strategic insight and people expertise with commercial acumen. Focused on changing the way organisations think about their people and have long-term impact.

All membership routes:

CIPD offers several routes for progressing your membership. Try our decision tree for guidance on the right path for you.

Are you a current Chartered or Associate Member with an Advanced Diploma?

If yes, you may be able to use our easy upgrade process. 

If no, try our comprehensive decision tree for guidance on your next steps.

To discover if Experience Assessment is right for you, try our free 10-minute online pre-assessment tool. It provides you with an immediate outcome and can help you identify development areas. You can use the tool as many times as you like. 

Test out the different membership levels to see where your experience best fits and if Experience Assessment could work for you.

If the pre-assessment tool shows you have the right experience, then you can decide if you'd like to continue to the full assessment. We'll let you know what to do next once you've completed the online pre-assessment. 

The Experience Assessment route to membership uses an assessment of your people practitioner work over the past five years to assess your knowledge and behaviours across the key areas of people, work and change. 

To achieve the membership level you’re looking for you’ll need to meet the membership standards  for that level. These are based on our Profession Map.  

The assessment has two parts: 

1. Written submission - accessed via the Learning hub. Here we’ll ask you to share a range of examples of your work to answer questions on people, work and change.  
2. Professional Discussion - a virtual discussion that lasts around 1.5 hours with a CIPD assessor. They'll explore your evidence with you and it’s a great way to showcase your work and impact as a people practitioner. 

What does the written submission involve?

The written submission is a range of questions on people, work and change. It is not essay style, but shorter responses where a clear word count is given.  

All questions will relate directly to the membership standards, and we're looking to see evidence of your knowledge and impact in the workplace, whilst demonstrating your commitment to the highest professional standards. 

We ask different questions according to which membership level you’re looking to achieve. The questions will explore the scope and complexity of evidence. 

What do we mean by 'evidence'?

Evidence is examples of your work – what you’ve done (within the last five years) and the impact it has had within the workplace.

Yes. You upload your written submission to our Learning hub and we run the Professional Discussion via video call.

Candidates complete our Experience Assessment route in around three months. 

You’ll have four weeks to complete your written submission and the Professional Discussion takes around 1.5 hours. 

Candidates typically need to be able to invest around three to four days to complete the assessment. Your outcome will be available within four weeks of your Professional Discussion.

Yes, you can use your international experience.

All relevant people practitioner experience from the last five years can be shared through the assessment process. This does not need to be specific to the UK or gained whilst working in the UK. Hundreds of global candidates have successfully used our Experience Assessment route, gaining membership to join our global membership community of over 160,000 members. 

Yes. The key difference is that studying for one of our qualifications is all about learning and gaining knowledge. If you do this successfully, you’ll get a CIPD qualification which will give you a membership outcome. 

The Experience Assessment route is purely an assessment of what you've already done in your career over the past five years, and the impact you've made. You're assessed against our membership standards. If successful, you’ll gain professional accreditation through our CIPD membership.

We know that qualifications aren't right for everyone. We designed Experience Assessment for those who have already gained work experience. It's for people who want to gain recognition and accreditation for their on-the-job learning, rather than a qualification.

To help you decide what’s right for you, try our decision tree. It will help guide you through what we offer depending on where you are in your career.

By successfully completing Experience Assessment you'll gain professional accreditation through our CIPD membership. You'll join or progress within our thriving professional community. We'll post a membership certificate to you and you can use the relevant designation after your name. As part of your membership, you'll have access to a whole host of CIPD membership benefits.

Remember, the Experience Assessment route does not give you a qualification. This route is an assessment of what you've already done in your career over the last five years, so there's no studying involved.

What are the pass rates?

We understand that investing in our Experience Assessment route to gain CIPD membership is a big commitment. Thanks to our online pre-assessment, over 96% of all candidates gain the membership level they were looking for. On completion of the full assessment, candidates are delighted to join our ever-growing people professional community.

What if I don’t meet the minimum result?

We do have a very small percentage of candidates who don't meet the membership standards for the membership level they were looking for. In this instance, where possible, your assessor will review your evidence against the membership standards for the grade below. If your evidence meets these standards, that level of membership may be awarded. 

Where this happens, or in instances where we’re unable to award a level of membership, you’ll receive a personal feedback report. The report covers areas of strength and those for development. Together with suggestions to build into your continuing professional development. 

We’re keen to support you to achieve the grade you apply for, so if you are unsuccessful, you will be able to undertake one free re-assessment within 12 months. 

We want to give you every chance to successfully complete Experience Assessment. On starting your Experience Assessment journey you’ll receive comprehensive candidate guidance. This guides you step-by-step through the assessment process. It also includes examples of the types of evidence we’re looking for and the impact you've had. You'll also find more FAQs on the experience assessment section on the Learning hub.

If you feel you'd like some additional one-to-one support, why not invest in a one hour coaching call? (Note: there’s an additional charge for this service.) One of our assessors will discuss your evidence with you, give feedback and answer any questions you have. 

Join the Experience Assessment Community group for peer-to-peer support throughout your assessment. 

Full details of what the assessment involves can be found on this page.

We're here to help - let us know if you'd like to talk more about the assessment and if you think you may need reasonable adjustments. You can do this by completing the reasonable adjustments section of the registration form or by contacting us on +44 (0)20 8612 6208 (09:00 - 16:00 Mon - Fri UK time) or via email at ea@cipd.co.uk.

We’re committed to supporting all candidates through their Experience Assessment journey and ensuring equal access to resources and support. A dedicated assessor will contact you to chat through what adjustments you may need and how best we can accommodate these.  

The adjustments we can typically make include: additional time, different assessment form, structure of the Professional Discussion, additional breaks and planning support and screen reader accessible materials.  However, we consider all requests on individual need.