Role:

Laboratory Technician

Professional Registration Level:

Registered Science Technician (RSciTech)

Professional Body:

Royal Society of Biology

Why I applied for professional registration:

As a chance to take stock of my progress and gain recognition of my development as a Technician, and to champion professional registration for other Technical Staff.

My overall experience:

It was definitely valuable – an opportunity to reflect on the things I’ve learned and the skills I’ve developed during my time as a technician and actually write them down as a record.

My low points:

My professional body was just as new to getting people registered as I was to registering, so the support was quite sporadic and not always immediately available.

My tops tips for others/what I learned from the experience:

• Other people's perspectives on what you’ve achieved is really useful - there’s so much that you don’t notice yourself doing that fit a range of the criteria for registration.
• Allocating an hour a week away from your usual work station to dedicate to filling it out breaks it down and stops distractions.
• Re-read what you’ve written - it can take a while to fill out and I’d forgotten what examples I’d included already!
• Don’t be afraid to use the same example more than once. One example might be relevant to multiple criteria.