THE PROFESSIONAL
INTERVIEW EXPLAINED
for Professional Development Program Participants
THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
1. What is the Professional Interview (PI)
The PI is the third and final stage of the assessment process in your journey to become Chartered.
It is where you, in person, explain to members of your profession (the Interview Panel) why you meet the
criteria expected of a Chartered engineering professional and where this Panel can examine and ensure
that you do meet these criteria.
The PI is not just a tick-off of your written Engineering Competency Claims (ECCs), but rather a
presentation, conversation and demonstration of your depth and breadth of engineering knowledge
and experience in your engineering discipline, as well as your commitment to high standards of
professionalism and ethical behaviour well beyond what may have been shown to Engineers Australia
through your written submission.
The four areas looked at in your PI are:
• your Personal Commitment,
• how well you carry out your Obligation to the Community,
• your Value in the Workplace, and
• your Technical Proficiency.
You will notice that all the 16 current Stage 2 Australian Engineering Competencies are grouped into one
of these above overall areas.
2. Logistics
What do I need to do?
As a PDP Participant, you most likely started the process to become Chartered as a Graduate Member of
Engineers Australia. BEFORE you confirm your PI outcomes in eChartered and attend your PI, you must
upgrade to the grade of full Member in your relevant occupational category (ie Professional – MIEAust,
Technologist - TMIEAust or Associate - AMIEAust).
Upgrade Information:
Following confirmation of your PI Outcomes and your payment in eChartered, you will be sent a
confirmation of receipt of your application. You will be contacted within 2-4 weeks by one of our Division
PI Administrators to arrange your Interview time and date. You may also receive a letter in the mail with
specific instructions. It is important that if you have any special requirements including date and time
preferences, overseas interviews or Registration requests that you advise the Division PI Administrator.
In the majority of cases, we request that you attend the Interview in person in one of our Division offices.
For remote and overseas participants, you may be able to undertake your interview via video conference,
but we recommend that you contact your relevant Division to discuss arrangements.
When you arrive, you will be asked for formal photo identification such as a driver’s license or passport.
What is the format of the PI?
The total time of the Interview is approximately 1 hour, but you should allow for up to 1.5 hours. You will
be required to give a 15 minute uninterrupted presentation and then engage in 30-45 minutes of technical
discussion based upon your presentation, the Chartered competencies and your written submission (ECCs,
EER, CV, and CPD Record) plus 5-10 minutes of general discussion on ethics, environment and sustainability.
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THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
Your Panel will consist of either 2 nationally accredited assessors or 1 nationally accredited assessor and
one or more experienced engineers in your field of practice.
Following the Interview, you will be asked to wait outside the room whilst the Panel discusses and evaluates
your application and Interview to come to a considered decision as to your engineering competence. You
will then be advised of the outcome of their decision and any appropriate follow-up actions required on
your behalf.
You may not be awarded all outcomes sought. Ie, if you are seeking Chartered and/or Registration in two
areas of practice, you may only receive it in one area.
It is important to note that the PI payment is for the assessment and Interview itself regardless of the
PI outcome. There are no refunds if the outcome is unsuccessful and you may need to pay again if you need
to re-sit the PI after some time (usually 12 months).
What happens if I am successful?
If you are successful, you will receive an interim letter confirming your award of Chartered. A formal letter,
your Chartered Certificate and any Registration letters or certificates as appropriate will be sent to you in
the mail in the days following your Interview. In some cases your Certificate is held for presentation to you
at an appropriate time by Engineers Australia at your organisation or other Chartered event.
What if I am unsuccessful?
If you are unsuccessful, please refer to Section 6. A letter giving detail about the unsuccessful outcome and
what you will need to do to address the shortcomings identified by the Interview Panel will be forwarded to
you in the days following the Interview, but you will also be provided with advice on the day.
3. Your Presentation
You may wish to start your presentation with a brief overview of your career to date focusing on
your career development and your roles and challenges. Remember you only have 15 minutes for your
entire presentation.
This is about you as an engineer, the emphasis should be on your engineering competencies, not the
projects you have worked on – the Panel want to hear what you have personally done and engineered.
You should describe your direct involvement in a couple of engineering projects, programs or work that
you feel best demonstrates your engineering competency. You should not attempt to cover your whole
career or eChartered submission in your 15 minute presentation, but rather only the key aspects.
The emphasis of your presentation should be your problem solving, judgements and decisions, illustrated
from your recent career experiences with reference to Engineers Australia’s definition of engineering
problems and engineering activities – refer to the current Stage 2 competencies.
Your presentation should be well rehearsed to inform and command the interest of the panel.
The presentation needs to include:
• Slide presentation (remember 3–5 dot points)
• A confident presentation (not read from written text)
• Time managed (15 minutes – practice!)
• Key aspects.
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THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
4. Special Information for those with credited 2004 competencies
In July 2012, Engineers Australia released its new set of Stage 2 Australian Engineering Competency
Standards. As part of the transition, Engineers Australia undertook a mapping exercise to try and give PDP
Participants credit for the work that had been completed under the old (2004) set of competencies.
Mapping Guide:
If you are one of these candidates, you need to take some extra time to prepare for your PI:
• Your entire application will be reviewed in the context of the current (2012) set of competencies prior
to you being contacted to attend your PI. You may be required to submit an additional Engineering
Competency Claim (ECC) outside of the eChartered system to cover any gaps our Assessors have
identified due to your mapping before attending your PI.
• You should review the Mapping Guide and BOTH sets of competencies as part of your PI prep to
understand how the two sets of Competencies, and your experiences relate. You need to understand how
your evidence, whether 2004 or 2012 competency based, relates to the areas of Personal Commitment,
Obligation to the Community, Value in the Workplace and Technical Proficiency.
• You will need to answer questions and provide evidence/examples across BOTH sets of competencies.
• If the majority of your submission has been under the current set of competencies, then you will be
questioned as if your entire application has been under this current set, with minor reference to your
2004 competency work.
• If the majority of your submission has been under the 2004 set of competencies, you will be questioned
as such, but will still need to be prepared to respond to questions regarding the current set.
• You need to ensure that you have current (less than 3 years old) examples of your engineering experience
to discuss in relation to the competencies, especially if your 2004 evidence that was credited was from
prior to 2009.
• You should aim your 15 minutes presentation to cover career activities in the context of the current
Chartered competency expectations.
• Should you not be successful at the Professional Interview, any supplementary exercise or re-interview
will be entirely based upon the current set of Competencies.
• In the unlikely event of a complete failure, you will need to complete a full current (2012) Competency
based Chartered application from scratch.
• If you have any questions or concerns regarding your Interview, you should contact your local Division
Assessors to discuss prior to attending your Interview.
5. Preparing for your PI
• Prior presentation prevents poor performance.
• Read through the ideas given in Annex A: A guide to your Professional Interview by Andrew Botros from
Expressive Engineering.
• Take your time to prepare, and remember practise makes perfect. Practice with colleagues, your Mentor
or even family.
• Anticipate the questions you are likely to be asked – they will be against the four competency areas.
Get your Mentor to ask you some curly questions and practise your responses.
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THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
• Talk to others who have gone through their PIs for any of their hints and tips.
• Make sure you completely understand the Chartered Competencies.
• Re-read all of your Engineering Competency Claims prior to the Interview.
• Especially if it has taken you some time to get from your first ECC submission to the PI, ensure you
remember what projects you talked about in your ECCs and have some more recent examples to add to
the discussion.
• Ensure you understand Engineers Australia’s Code of Ethics and Ethical behaviour principles,
sustainability principles (refer to Engineers Australia’s Charter on Sustainability), the current engineering
environment and how it impacts on you (ie Regulation, major changes to codes and legislation, OHS etc).
• Use previously successful preparation methods.
• Remember that our Panelists, after reviewing your written application, will usually have a positive
opinion of your ability to demonstrate the Chartered competencies. The PI gives the Panel the chance to
confirm that opinion!
6. Unsuccessful PI options
Engineers Australia has a high pass rate for its Professional Interviews. Some individuals however,
will be unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. The most common reason will be that despite your
written submission, the Panel feel, in person, at this point in time, that you do not have enough sound
and appropriate experience or understanding of the engineering competency criteria required of a
Chartered engineer.
The outcome of the PI is given at the end of the Interview. Complete failure, where you need to start
the submission phase completely from scratch again is rare. In most cases you will need to complete a
supplementary written exercise and/or attend another PI after a certain period of time.
Once the shock or dismay at not passing the PI wanes, Engineers Australia recommends that you:
1. Read carefully through the PI feedback letter that you received.
2. Contact the Assessor from your PI Panel to discuss the feedback given, if you require further clarification.
3. Work through the feedback with your Mentor to plot out a course of action to ensure success next time
4. Gain more experience in the areas suggested and/or prepare any written reports as required.
5. Ensure you do not rush to attend the PI again, but wait the full recommended time as suggested by
the Panel.
6. Practice for your PI with mock interviews by colleagues, mentors or others and ensure you can respond
clearly, and show your competence in the areas originally highlighted as weak areas.
If after careful review of the feedback letter received, you believe that the unsuccessful outcome was not
fair, you do have the right of appeal. We have a formal process that is to be followed:
Appeals Process Information:
The Appeal process will take at least 6 months and any outcome from this process is final.
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THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
ANNEX A
A GUIDE TO YOUR PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
ANDREW BOTROS
Director of Expressive Engineering
abotros@expressiveeng.com.au
What should I talk about in my 15 minute presentation?
Before you prepare for your Professional Interview, pause and reflect on the purpose of the interview.
The journey of achieving the Chartered credential is about developing and demonstrating your engineering
competencies. The Professional Interview is the final station in this journey, so above all else, the interview
is your forum to demonstrate your competencies.
Think about structuring your 15 minute presentation around competency themes or two to three recent
projects that demonstrate your strongest competencies. Before writing notes or developing slides,
think along the lines of (for example): “What part of my career best demonstrates engagement with
stakeholders?” rather than: “What was the most impressive part of my career?”
Having said that, there are 16 competencies in Engineers Australia’s Stage 2 standards, certainly
too many to address in a 15 minute presentation. In fact, it is quite unlikely that you will address them
all in the full interview.
During your presentation, include a handful of competencies that best illustrate your growth and
achievements as an engineer. Impress the panel through the competencies that you would like to talk
about. During your presentation, you get to set the agenda, so relax and enjoy yourself. Celebrating your
achievements should not be a painful experience!
It is also important to be clear at all times about your own specific contributions to projects, as opposed to
the work of your respective engineering teams. The panel will no doubt be impressed by your company’s
projects, but it is your own development and your own achievements that are the interest of the panel.
How many slides should my presentation be?
A rule of thumb is, at most, one slide per minute. So you should aim for about 10 slides (not including a
title slide).
The instinct for many engineers is to put more words on a slide once the number of slides is capped. This
is always a mistake. When you overload your slides, you go very close to forfeiting the interest of your
audience before you say a single word. Your interview panellists will be forced to stop listening to you in
order to read your slides, or worse, they might simply lose your message altogether. Try to limit yourself
to 3-5 dot points per slide, and if you can limit each dot point to a single line, all the better. A slide with
nothing more than a title and a single image can be very effective.
Don’t be afraid to title some of your slides by a particular competency, such as “Engage with the relevant
community and stakeholders”. Underneath this title, mention a couple of projects (just in a few words)
that clearly demonstrate your development in the competency. This gives a clear signal to the interview
panel that you are addressing their interests, which are your own competencies. Don’t forget that the
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THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
panel has already seen your written submission, so your presentation should highlight the best from it
without rewriting swathes of text on the screen. This is also an opportunity to use pictures, diagrams and
graphs, to help get your message across.
If you’re not used to giving presentations, try to arrange a practise run of your presentation in front of your
team at work (particularly if some of your colleagues are Chartered themselves). Apart from your goal of
Chartered of course, this is a great way to promote your abilities and ideas in your workplace. Of practical
importance however, you may be surprised at how long your presentation actually takes. Time tends to
warp when you’re unfamiliar with being on stage. Some rush unnecessarily, and others feel they have all
the time in the world.
How do I handle the panellists’ questions?
Be prepared for questions on both your presentation and your submission documents. If you do get lots of
questions, don’t feel like you’re under attack. Listen carefully to the questions and be good-natured about
giving your best answers. If the intent of any question seems unclear, don’t hesitate to ask for clarification
and open the question to a conversation.
You are not expected to match the abilities and experiences of the panellists. If a panellist suggests an
alternative path you might have taken on a project, be willing to acknowledge this as a valid point of view
if it has merit. Alternatives don’t invalidate your own approach, so be open to good ideas. Often a little
bit of information from you will explain your choices, so have a healthy, collegial conversation with
the panellists. Rather than looking for ways to fail you, the panellists are most often testing their own
curiosities. Interest in your work is always better than apathy.
If in doubt, fall back on the competencies that you have developed. Even engineering projects that were
less than exemplary are learning experiences. If a panellist seems critical of approaches in your work
history, consider how those experiences have served to shape your abilities as an engineer along the
journey to Chartered.
How do I handle questions about ethics?
You need to be familiar with Engineers Australia’s Code of Ethics to achieve Chartered Status. The
interview panellists need to satisfy themselves that you have engaged with the Code of Ethics, and that
you have thought about your engineering career with ethical issues in mind. The panel is not looking for
philosophical expertise in ethics.
Before attending your interview, reflect on the ethical considerations that arose during your major
projects. In particular, think about your relationships with employers, clients and the profession at large,
and how you have balanced expectations to deliver outcomes of mutual benefit.
If the subject of ethics seems daunting or unclear, you might like to take a look at Values Exchange, a web
resource in development by Engineers Australia.
Your frame of mind matters
If you lack confidence about your Professional Interview, just remember a simple fact: you wouldn’t be given
an interview in the first place if the panel didn’t have confidence in your engineering experience. Before
you step into the interview room, the panel has an interest in seeing you succeed, because it is in favour
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THE PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW EXPLAINED FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
of your written submissions. The interview gives the panel the chance to validate your work experiences.
Accordingly, the great majority of applicants pass their Professional Interview and attain Chartered.
Make it your goal to give the panel a positive experience of your interview. Leave any negativity about past
projects at the door, and be sure to express an enthusiasm for your work. If you seem disinterested in your
own work, the panel will find it difficult to avoid feeling the same.
Do you consider yourself a seasoned interviewee? The best performers at interviews know how to convey
a sense of membership amongst the ranks of their interview panels. For example, when applying for a
job, they know how to make the interviewers feel as if the applicant were already working with them.
This is a subtle art, and not something you should expect of yourself instantly. Nevertheless, the first
step in this art is to be conversational throughout the entire interview (but avoid just idle chat). Introduce
yourself on entering the room. Deliver your presentation with the same tone of voice and at the same
pace as a lunchtime discussion about your work. And finally, relax during the question session. It’s
not an interrogation, but a validation of your work and interesting questions may open into enjoyable
conversations with the panel.
A final word on Chartered
Chartered means much more than the recognition of your technical skills. Chartered acknowledges
your ability to work with diverse interests and create solutions that are effective and compelling,
even when demands are in conflict. Rarely is an engineering solution unanimously accepted as the
sole correct solution, so you should accustom yourself with the expression and promotion of your ideas.
The Professional Interview is your chance to do so in front of a distinguished panel at an exciting time
in your engineering career.
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