The Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) credential is universally recognized in the occupational and environmental health and safety field. Many OEHS professionals dream that the Board for Global EHS Credentialing (BGC), which administers the CIH exam, will one day confer the credential to them, signifying their professional acumen and high ethical standards.

APPLYING FOR THE CIH EXAM The first step to applying for the CIH exam is determining your eligibility by completing BGC’s CIH eligibility checklist (PDF). The components of CIH eligibility focus on your educational background, professional experience, and ethics training. You can never review the checklist too early—in some cases, it may take months or years to complete missing requirements. The BGC Code of Ethics (PDF) is another critical component to the CIH exam and credential. Study BGC’s exam blueprint to understand the exam topics and composition (PDF).

Applying for the exam through the BGC website is time intensive, so begin long before the semiannual application deadline. The application requires you to list your industrial hygiene-related coursework, class by class, occasionally with supporting documents. You must describe your scope of practice in physical, biological, and chemical topics in enough detail to demonstrate competence. You will have to provide professional recommendations letters, called PRQs: one from a supervisor and one from a CIH, who may be the same person. If you don’t currently have a supervisor or work with a CIH, as is increasingly common in today’s dynamic job market, you may submit work examples that demonstrate your scope of practice.