CQI Member Journey

At all stages of your membership journey the CQI is here to provide you with the support you need and the recognition that you deserve.

What follows is just one example of how a member journey can work. All member journeys are different. Yours will be unique to you!

Early Career stage

You have no formal training or qualifications so the Affiliate grade is appropriate to you.

The CQI can give you a good grounding in modern quality issues through Quality World and other online resources.

The branch network can help you to meet other quality professionals in your area, and perhaps find a mentor.

You join the Next Generation Network in order to connect with other people of a similar age and career position.

Next steps

You have a few years of experience under your belt and you have undertaken some formal training, so you regrade to the Practitioner grade and start using the letters PCQI after your name.

You now have a clearer idea of where you want your career to go, so you start measuring yourself against the CQI Competency Framework.

Although CPD isn’t a requirement at the Practitioner you start using the CQI’s CPD system to plan your professional development and help you to get to where you want to be.

The CQI’s information resources continue to play a big role in your learning, but now you are reading more widely around the subject and accessing articles from many of the 1000s of journals available in the CQI e-library.

You are established within an industry sector now and start engaging with a Special Interest Group, helping you to meet other people in your industry and develop your knowledge and influence.

An established professional

You are now a well rounded quality professional with a few jobs under your belt and you want to be recognised as such. Maybe you are now in a management or want to get into a management role. You regrade to the Chartered Quality Professional Member grade, and in doing so your competence is measured against the CQI Competency Framework.

Professional development continues to be a priority and the effective use of the CQI CPD system is vital to ensuring that you are ready to meet the challenges ahead.

You want to get more involved with the CQI and give something back to the profession. You become the Chair of your local branch or maybe you become the Chair of your Special Interest Group.

You write articles for Quality World and contribute to the CQI’s online content, thereby allowing members from around the world to learn from your experience.

You contribute to CQI consultations. You have experience and opinions and the CQI provides you with an opportunity to have influence nationally and internationally.

An impactful professional

You’ve shown leadership and expertise, not just in your workplace but in your industry and the quality profession as a whole. You have made a difference. Your career isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination. You have more to give, but you want your contribution to be recognised so you regrade to Chartered Quality Professional Fellow.

Using your status as a Fellow you have more influence within the profession.

You get involved in the governance of the CQI, possibly even becoming a trustee. You help to shape the organisation that has nurtured and supported you. 

You aren’t just submitting views to consultations now, you involved on working groups. Perhaps you are even leading them. The CQI now looks to you for your sector specific knowledge.

But you never stop learning, so you continue engaging with the CPD process and you make good use of information resources, events and networking opportunities.

Retired professional

Retirement doesn’t have to be the end.

Perhaps you want to just keep in touch with the profession you have got so much from and given so much to. So you stay in membership.

Maybe you want to give something back, so you get back involved in your branch committee.

Maybe you mentor quality professionals who are just starting out.

Your experience is valuable and the CQI will provide you with opportunities to share that experience.

Everyone’s member journey is different, but whatever your destination the CQI will help you to get there.