This blog post is written by Mike Rogers CEng FICE, ICE specialist for The Civil Engineering Exam.
Mike is a current Reviewer and Mentor for the ICE and has spent the last 20 years developing the careers of hundreds of civil engineers. He has conducted over 300 ICE Professional Reviews of all grades, from Engineering Technician all the way up to Fellowship.
We hope that you are keeping safe in these strange times.
As many of you will be aware, the ICE Professional Reviews were sadly postponed in the Spring due to uncertainty with regards to holding face to face meetings. You may have seen that the ICE have reviewed their guidance and will be undertaking the Reviews remotely. The intention is for the ICE to roll this out from May such that all of the Spring Reviews can be completed – there were some 800 scheduled globally.
Now may be the time to restart the preparation for the review, read through the report again, practice the presentation and prepare for the WE. As the reviews will be conducted remotely, you may want to practice this approach as it will be different to the standard reviews – there will be guidance produced by the ICE and when this arrives it would be worth taking some time to feel confident with the online tools
What can you do to prepare?
Doing remote interviews on this scale is unprecedented. In fact, ICE only went ahead with video interviews of any kind in the last couple of years.
Our Mock ICE Reviews have always been conducted over video, and for that reason we are already best-placed to provide feedback on your suitability for professional registration of any grade.
Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse
Every little detail, including technical ones will matter in this kind of setup. Practice using your computer with the same webcam, monitor, microphone and headset as the real thing. Make sure the backdrop to your video is tidy. The last thing you will want to do is to encounter anything that could easily have been resolved up front.
Good luck – don't worry about it
The Professional Review is meant to be a discussion among peers, so do not get nervous. The reviewers may also be nervous too as nearly everyone is unfamiliar with video reviewing, so try to take control of the discussion and hope the results go your way.