Writing your three career episodes
You are required to present an account of your engineering activities on each of three separate
career episodes.
A career episode is a documented component of your engineering education and/or work
experience which captures a particular period or distinct aspect of your engineering activity. It needs
to clearly demonstrate the application of engineering knowledge and skills in the nominated
occupation, not the acquisition of knowledge.
It may use material from:
- an engineering task undertaken as part of your educational program;
- a project you have worked on or are currently working on;
- a specific position that you occupied or currently occupy (in this case, the career episode
must comprise more than a mere duty statement); - a particular engineering problem that you were required to solve.
Each career episode must be in your own words and must be written in English.
Do not present large amounts of technical material. It is recommended that each narrative be a
minimum of about 1000 words and a maximum of about 2000 words.
The career episode, being written in your own words, will also provide evidence to the assessor of
your communication skills.
Please Note
Career Episodes must be written in the first person singular clearly indicating your own personal role
in the work described. Remember, it is what ‘I did’, not what ‘we did’ or what ‘I was involved in.’
Each career episode must clearly demonstrate the application of engineering knowledge and skills in
the engineering discipline for which the applicant seeks recognition.
That is, state “what you did” and describe “how you did it”, with emphasis on your own personal
actions, eg “I designed…”, “I investigated…”. Excessive technical detail (diagrams, photos,
calculations, tables) are not required.
Each career episode should emphasise any engineering problems identified and any particular
problem solving techniques used by you. The purpose of this is to assess the nature of the
contribution which you may have made to the engineering project or task – particularly if that contribution was of a novel nature or critical to the implementation of the task/project.
Please note that it is not sufficient to merely describe work in which you were involved. Your own role in the work must be clearly described by you, and be identifiable in the assessment.
You must number each paragraph in each of your career episodes. The following system is
recommended;
Career episode 1 (paragraphs 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc)
Career episode 2 (paragraphs 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 etc)
Career episode 3 (paragraphs 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 etc)
This is necessary to construct the Summary Statement.
Each career episode should follow the format shown below:
a) Introduction (approx. 50 words)
This introduces the reader to the career episode and should include such things as:
• the chronology – the dates and duration of this career episode;
• the geographical location where the experience was gained;
• the name of the organisation;
• the title of the position occupied by you.
b) Background (200 – 500 words)
This sets the scene and provides the context in which you were studying/working. It should include
such things as:
• the nature of the overall engineering project;
• the objectives of the project;
• the nature of your particular work area;
• a chart of the organisational structure highlighting your position, in relation to the career
episode;
• a statement of your duties (provide an official duty statement where available).
c) Personal Engineering Activity (500 – 1000 words)
This is the body of the narrative and the key assessable component. In this section you must
describe in detail the actual work performed by you. It is not sufficient to describe the activity
performed by a team or group – your own role must be clearly identified. Remember it is your own
personal engineering competencies that are being assessed.
This section should include such things as:
• how you applied your engineering knowledge and skills;
• the tasks delegated to you and how you went about accomplishing them;
• any particular technical difficulties/problems you encountered and how you solved them;
• strategies devised by you including any original or creative design work;
• how you worked with other team members.
d) Summary (50 – 100 words)
This section sums up your impressions of the engineering activity and your role in it. It should
include such things as:
• your view of the overall project;
• how the project fared in meeting the goals/requirements;
• how your personal role contributed to the project.
3.8 Preparation of the Summary Statement
Complete the three career episodes, then analyse them for the presence of ALL of the competency
elements for the occupational category you have chosen.
The elements for each occupational category are listed in the Engineers Australia Booklet and
available to download from Engineer’s Australia website.
The results of your analysis are to be reported in the form of a Summary Statement of competency
elements claimed. The Summary Statement cross-references the relevant set of competency
elements with the particular paragraph in your Career Episode where each element occurs. To do
this, you will need to number the paragraphs in your career episodes.
The process is represented schematically below:
You must download and complete the appropriate summary statement for your nominated
occupational category.
The summary statement templates are available at
www.engineersaustralia.org.au/migration_skills
These are guides only. Do not attempt to restrict your Summary Statement to one page only.
Applicants may prepare their own summary table, but must include the complete set of competency
elements for their nominated engineering category.
Please note, one Summary Statement only is to be provided covering all three career episodes
combined.
