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• MY CIMA

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• About us
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• The qualification structure
• The full syllabus
• Syllabus guidance
• The 2010 syllabus
• Practical experience
  • Requirements
  • Record your experience
  • Assessment of practical experience
• Fees and payment
• Exam process
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• Velocity e-magazine

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Practical experience

Becoming a CIMA member is not simply a matter of passing the exams. You also need a minimum of three years' relevant practical experience before you can call yourself a chartered management accountant, or use the letters ACMA after your name.

Make it part of your career plan to fulfil the requirements for membership and have your practical experience assessed.

What do I need to do?

• You need to familiarise yourself with the practical experience requirements and start to make notes as soon as you begin your relevant practical experience
• You need to record your experience in a career profile. The career profile includes:
  • Section 1 - Assessment of practical experience/Membership application form, signed by a proposer and seconder
  • Section 2 - Employment Summary
  • Section 3 - Detailed record of your experience 
  • Section 4 - Record of skills development

As soon as you have successfully completed the managerial level exams and have a minimum of three years relevant practical experience, submit your career profile for assessment. At the very latest you must make an application within four years of completing your final TOPCIMA exam (if you completed your exams prior to March 2008 you have five years in which to submit an application for CIMA membership). If you don't submit your career profile in that time, you will be removed from the register of passed finalists.

This area will guide you through the practical experience requirements and assist you in making a successful application. If you are not familiar with our requirements the PER brochure (PDF 318KB) provides a useful starting point.

If you need any additional information, please email our CIMA contact centre.

How does membership help you?

David Brown ACMA graduated as a member in June 2007. He is a foreign exchange and money markets dealer with the global markets team at Shell Treasury Centre Limited.

He talks here about his experience of applying for membership:

Progressing from student to member:
For me, it was a natural progression on completing TOPCIMA. I had been gaining my experience as I studied. I applied as soon as I was comfortable that I had the necessary experience. I felt that the progression to membership would demonstrate my competence in management accountancy beyond the purely theoretical and be useful in helping my employability.

How easy it was to fill in the applications forms?
The application forms were slightly daunting at first, but I felt confident when I read the Practical Experience Requirements leaflet. It was useful to use my existing CV as a base. It helped me identify where my CV could be improved, and also gave me the chance to refamiliarise myself with previous achievements that might be useful in job applications. 

Allocating months against each experience area (basic, core, supplementary) for the employment summary was slightly arbitrary, and was done on a best guess basis.

How quick was your application turnaround?
I attended a CIMA interview assessment day, which appealed to me for two reasons: it had a turnaround time of only a couple of hours, and I was motivated by the deadline for completing the application. It could have been too easy to leave the application unfinished, collecting dust (or the electronic equivalent). The interview itself was conducted in a fairly informal manner.

What has membership has meant to your career and employability?
ACMA is well recognised in the company and demonstrates core competence development. I feel that membership has greatly enhanced my employability, because it testifies to my practical experience and the use of my skills and knowledge in the business environment. The number and quality of jobs open to me has increased dramatically, because ACMA is increasingly a candidate requirement.

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