Details of Engineers Australia (EA)

Engineers Australia is a non-profit organization that is professionally dedicated as a national forum to advance the field of engineering within Australia. According to the recent statistics of 2013, EA has more than 100,000 members representing the engineering discipline from nine significant geographical divisions. The members list comprises of 41,000 students, 55,700 professional engineers and 4,500 engineering associates.
Engineers Australia is the owner of two subsidiaries:

• Engineers Media, the publishing department situated in Sydney
• The education department commonly known as Engineering Education Australia situated in Melbourne

What are the documents required in CD

Competency Demonstration Report (CDR) includes the following package of documents.

• The application form of CDR
• Certified copies of all your academic documents
• Results or grade sheet of International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
• Resume or curriculum vitae with a cover letter
• Self-attested copies of academic records
• Listing of continuous professional development
• Three career episode reports (CERs) that present the professional experience of the applicant
• Statement summary of competencies
• EA declaration page signed by the applicant.

Categories of occupation recognized by Engineers Australia

Four categories of engineering occupation are recognized by the accredited body of Engineers Australia.

Professional Engineer

The academic qualification included in this prospect is complete 12 years of schooling or equivalent and 4 years of Australian degree in Bachelors of Engineering.

Professional engineers are responsible for the following functional areas.

• Assess the overall engineering systems
• Innovate and apply advanced engineering practices
• Impeccable in applying management and leadership skills to control teams
• Capable to solve diverse problems of engineering systems and applications
• Acknowledge the wide-ranging opportunities of engineering in an ethical manner by essentially taking into account the social responsibility, communal and environmental issues

Engineering Associate

The academic qualification for this occupation include Australian diploma of two years in advanced engineering and complete twelve years of schooling or equivalent.

Functions of engineering associate are:

• Supervise the specific departments of engineering system
• Responsible for programming and practice implication of codes

Engineering Technologist

It requires the qualification of 12 years schooling or equivalent and 2 years of Australian degree in Bachelors of Engineering Technology.

An engineering technologist performs the following functions:

• Plays a great role in advancement of technology
• Design programming language codes to interact with the system
• Modifies and establishes advanced engineering techniques and application of the advanced practices

Engineering Manager

The academic qualification considers Bachelors or Masters in Engineering. Qualified engineers are offered with the post of engineering administrators or managers.

Engineering manager encompasses wide-ranging engineering services among which some of them are considered below.

• The position of engineering manager is an authoritative height that involves administration of the entire system of engineering practices. It involves formulation of engineering policies, planning of strategies, direction to the functioning of subordinate engineers, supervision of engineering operations.
• The subordinate managers should report to the head of engineering managers.

What are the pathways to recognition?

There are generally two pathways to recognition of your academic qualification and professional experience in the field of engineering.

1. The non-accredited qualifications and experience gets recognized through the Competency Demonstration Report (CDR)
2. Engineering qualifications are recognized through accredited bodies.

Writing styles of CDR for Engineers Australia

There are certain fundamentals that should be considered while writing competency demonstration and career episode reports. The pattern of writing CDR is thus elaborated in brief below:

Understanding the purpose of CDR

In one word, it would be the presentation of your competencies to Engineers Australia while applying for the post of professional engineer, technologists, associates or engineering manager. Communicate the skills and knowledge you posses to fit in the applied discipline. Attentively highlight the competencies mentioned in the Handbook of Engineers Australia Migration Skills and closely relate with that of your possessed skills.

Present the information desired by Engineers Australia

Engineers Australia necessarily acknowledges the following details of applicants:

1. Details of your academic achievements and practices
2. Details of your competencies
3. Relevant evidences in each of the paragraphs that would help the assessors to recognize your elements and sub-elements of competency.

Write in the language and style prescribed by Engineers Australia

Maintain the following writing characteristics while compiling your CDR with academic details.

1. CDR is the representation of personal report, hence the writing will be in ‘first person’
2. The writing style will be simple, clear and precise with no implementation of compound words or jargons.
3. Do not ever write a Career Episode Report in flowery language
4. The content should be composed of authentic evident and details. It should not include any unconfirmed claims
5. All of the possessed competencies must be related to engineering background.

Factors that should be strictly avoided

The following things should not find a place in your CDR:

1. Don’t try to show off your smartness and avoid reflecting your cleverness in the report
2. Do not try to showcase your previous company
3. Do not dictate about unproven knowledge and skills.

English Language criterion

Engineers Australia assesses the skills and qualifications of the applications through a series of evaluation process. In contrary to this, applicants should possess adequate competency in English Language. Following are the essential English Language criterions that every applicant should consider.

• Should acquire minimum score of 6.0 in each of these English language modules such as English reading, writing, fluency in speaking and listening
• Should qualify the cut-off marks in International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
• The test result or grade sheet must not be more than 2 years from the date of application reception

However, significant applicants are excused from the criteria of providing IELTS assessment grade sheet if they fall on the below mentioned category:

• If the applicants are native English speakers with English Language as their mother tongue
• If the applicants possess Australian degree in bachelors of engineering
• If the applicant has pursued a complete two years PhD course or Masters Degree from University of Australia.

Flaws in CDR application that leads to rejection

Majority of students reach a frozen state while preparing their career record details. Writing CDR is not a complex task but it is composed of multifaceted steps to present the report in a professional and proficient manner. Moreover, students forget the basic principles of writing a general report. The most common flaws found among students are that they cannot summarize their career episodes in significant points to make it look catchy and attractive. In the process of elaborative descriptions, they miss out to mention the important achievements and episodes in their career.

Majority of the students fail to relate professional development process in their CDR reports. Needless to say, overseas students fail to address the criteria or requirement details listed in the Engineers Australia Handbook. Hence, major part of the applicants violates the immigration assessment criteria by providing details that have not been asked for.