# Being a mock reviewer  

Being an interviewer in a mock review is one of the most helpful things you can do for a
trainee who is approaching their review (or end point assessment if they're an 
apprentice). Doing this well takes a lot of effort. It can be easy to forget what the 
attributes mean or what they all are when your own review is a distant memory. So the
first thing is to refresh yourself. If you are a delegated engineer, mentor or 
supervising civil engineer you will hopefully have this fresh in your mind but it can be
easy to have your own interpretation drift from the ICE's over time. Mock reviews are 
beneficial for the reviewers as well as the candidates because it helps you ask yourself
"what are the ICE looking for?" Furthermore the candidate will always know things you 
don't so you inevitably end up learning things from the reports (especially the good 
ones). But you still learn by preparing well for the bad ones because if you think 
something in the report is wrong, you really should check that you're correct in 
thinking so before you pose your challenging lines of enquiry.  

## Allow plenty of time  

The reports are fairly long so make sure you don't try and squeeze your preparation 
into too short a window. Don't neglect to read the CV, real reviewers almost always have
at least a few questions about a candidate's broader experience. Also, don't neglect the 
appendices. Reviewers will spot mistakes in calculations and unsafe designs and method
statements. 

## Make it harder than the real thing  

> Train hard, fight easy  
*Alexander Suvorov*  

If there are any mistakes in the candidate's report, grill them over it, you're doing 
them a favour. If they haven't submitted their report, it'll give them a chance to 
correct it. If it's already gone in, at least they have time to think about how to 
respond on the day.  

Reviewers should at some point ask something they don't think the candidate will know
to see if they bluff. Candidates should be ready to answer when put in this situation to 
the best of their ability without taking a wild punt (like an LLM). 

However, you should aim to make the majority of the questions things you would 
reasonably expect to come up in the real review, but go for questions you think the candidate will find hard based on your personal knowledge of them.  

## Look for the gaps  

I find it much easier to write questions prompted by what is in the report than what is
missing from it. It is important to remember that to pass a candidate, the reviewers 
will need to gather evidence on all the attributes. So reviewers should end up asking
more questions in the review on attributes that aren't covered well than ones that are.

My personal approach is I have a Microsoft Form with the fields:

- Attribute: Which attribute am I taking a note on?  
- Good/Bad/Question: Is this good or bad evidence or a question?  
- Reference: Page or paragraph number to refer back  
- Notes  

On my first read through a report I try to concentrate more on recording evidence than 
writing questions. When done I can filter the entries in Excel and quickly see which
attributes have lots of evidence and which don't.  

I will then write questions against any bad evidence, questions to test how far they can
go on their strong areas and lots of questions on attributes the report doesn't cover 
well. 

## Don't go alone  

It's really hard work doing a mock review alone, it's very difficult to keep the 
interview going.  

Both you and the co-reviewer should (ideally) do preparation independently of each other
and then have a meeting prior to the mock. In the meeting you should agree what you 
think the candidates actual strengths and weaknesses are, what the strengths and 
weaknesses of the report are (this can be quite different) and then discuss what lines
of questioning you want to pursue.  

Generally one reviewer will start a train of questions on a given topic and keep going till that topic is finished, then the other reviewer starts on something different. It's good to discuss which lines of questioning you'd both like to take on ensuring a spread 
across the attributes. It's ok to add a question of your own if your 
co-reviewer didn't ask something in their line of questioning you think they should but try to leave it till the end of their questions or ask politely if you can ask something in a gap, don't just jump in.  

## Allow time to feedback afterwards  

If you've given them a real grilling you shouldn't just finish with a "all the best" and
leave them panicking. If you know you asked a real stinker or two which a real reviewer 
would never ask you should say so. You don't want them going off studying up on stuff 
they won't need to know. So then concentrate on anything they didn't answer well. Give
advice on where they should go to get the right answers. Give feedback on their 
presentation and interview technique.  

## Become a real reviewer  

The ICE never has as many reviewers as it would like. Being a real reviewer is the best
way to get the inside track on what the ICE are looking for and it'll really help you
in mentoring your own trainees. It is also very broadening to review candidates and to
review with people from totally different parts of the industry. It's hard work, so 
weigh up if you can commit the time, but it is very beneficial.

Hope that helps.