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One of the most important areas you will need to provide for Engineers Australia (EA) when applying for a skills assessment via skilled employment for rpl report. Knowing what the evaluators are looking for and not looking for can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful application.
The RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) report is a formal report provided to Engineers Australia to be considered for engineers who are not Australian-accredited. The RPL pathway is an alternative to academic qualifications and requires applicants to demonstrate engineering competence through documented work experience, professional development and technical knowledge.
The RPL report is based on EA’s Stage 1 Competency Standards and usually contains three Career Episodes, a Summary Statement and supporting evidence, including evidence of competent employment in engineering activities.
Skilled employment for RPL reports is work done professionally for compensation in which the applicant used engineering knowledge, judgement, and technical skills at a level commensurate with the engineering category of the applicant (Engineering Technologist, Professional Engineer, or Engineering Associate).
This is not a mechanical or engineering job involving any setting or tool. Engineers Australia expects it to show some useful application of the engineering competencies. A site worker who is working on a project site with machinery is not the same person as an engineer who designs, analyses, or manages engineering systems, even if they are all working on the same site.
There are a number of criteria that need to be met for your employment to be considered skilled employment within an RPL report. Engineers Australia evaluate these as a whole response; the following constitute the most typical factors considered when assessing.
Engineering relevance
The job must include engineering-related activities such as design, analysis, test, project management, development or problem solving.
Appropriate level
The difficulty and responsibility of the tasks should be appropriate to the engineering category claimed, not necessarily to a support/administrative role.
Sufficient duration
While there is no hard-and-fast rule, it is important that the experience be sustained, and not just over the course of weeks, but over months or years.
Verifiable evidence
Employment has to be supported by documents, contracts, payslips, reference letters, project documents or statutory declarations.
Legitimate organisation
The employer must be an identifiable company or public body; if it is a sole trader, the self-employment must be backed up with additional evidence.
Local or overseas
Australian and overseas employment is acceptable as long as it fulfils the other criteria. A position does not automatically get passed on in the country of work.
The presentation of the employment experience in the RPL report is just as significant as the experience. Assessors need to be able to explicitly relate your claimed competencies to workplace examples.
Each Career Episode should be a true project or work situation. Describe what you did, the engineering decisions you made, and the results you obtained. Fuzzy job descriptions will not meet the requirements of assessors.
For each Career Episode, link to the Career Episode stage 1 competency elements in your Summary Statement. Here’s how assessors determine that your workplace actually was skilled.
Create Engineer’s Reference Letters detailing actual engineering roles, not just job title and employment dates. Report, calculations, design and client deliverables can all enhance your claim.
If the roles are not contiguous, discuss it head-on. Assessors flag unexplained gaps, which can slow down or jeopardise the assessment.
Use some engineering terminology to describe your engineering work. Don’t use broad terms that might be applicable for any office job.
The following job roles are considered to be skilled jobs for RPL reports, as long as the person can show that the engineering skills were used in a meaningful manner:
Self-employment as an engineering consultant or contractor might be considered skilled employment for RPL reports, but it will need more robust evidence. Since there is no employer to establish the nature of your work, Engineers Australia will expect that you will supply client contracts, invoices, project deliverables and statutory declarations from clients or professional colleagues to establish the engineering nature of your work.
If you were running your own engineering practice, you would need to make sure that you have specific details of projects that you have led or delivered, not just the business being in operation, and you being the owner.
One of the Fallacies that often occurs is that any position with the word engineer will qualify. This is not correct. Evaluators review the what, not the what it says in the title. Unskilled roles are those that are unlikely to be accepted, such as:
If a role is in the grey area (i.e. a hybrid engineering-tech sales position, or a role in which engineering was only a part of the duties) make sure to document the engineering aspects of the role in the Career Episodes.
CDR reports, resumes, VETASSESS, and RPL applications can be challenging to prepare. Our team of professionals has effectively helped clients obtain approval with professional services that address all of these needs.
Yes. Skilled employment may include part-time engineering experiences, but the total experience may be weighted according to the number of hours of part-time experience versus full-time experience. If your part-time job was a true engineering job, describe it in detail and have the Career Episodes prove it.
There is no minimum number of years that is published by Engineers Australia. In practice, most RPL applicants who are successful will be able to provide several years of skilled employment relevant to their applications. The depth and quality of evidence are more important than a number of years. A specific, well-documented and complex position can be more convincing than five years of loosely documented and low-complexity experience.
Yes. It is not as important to have a specific job title as it is to have work that has specific content. If you used your job to carry out engineering activities at the right competency level, it may count as a skilled occupation. Your Career Episode(s) and supporting evidence should explicitly explain the nature of your engineering work.
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