Why do good engineers fail and bad engineers pass their ICE professional reviews?

I used to find this very confusing. When I was newer to the industry I knew an engineer who really didn’t seem all that great who passed their review, and I knew other engineers who were really good who failed.

It seems to me that there are basically three main factors that affect your chances if you’re going for professional review. In order of importance:

• how good an engineer you are

• how well prepared you are

• how tough your reviewers are

How good an engineer you are

If things were totally fair this would be the only factor. The important thing to remember during your training is that the ICE have a definition of what constitutes a good engineer in their view. It’s a pretty broad definition that allows people from all sorts of different sectors and areas of expertise to join. But, they do expect all civil engineers to have a certain set of experience and knowledge. Some things in this set might not be things you need to do or know as part of your job.

So as not to get caught out it is good to get an appreciation as early as possible what it is the institution expects you to know and to have done. Hopefully you’ll be able to work with your mentor and managers to get the experience you need and you can take time learning the things you need to know that you can’t learn from the job.

How well prepared you are

Sometimes good engineers can get lulled into a false sense of confidence that they are bound to pass their review, they’re a good engineer, their managers and colleagues are happy with their work, it’s just a formality. They are told by engineers they respect that they’ll pass, no problem.

The problem is that your reviewers don’t know you like your colleagues do, they don’t know you at all.

All the reviewers have on which to base their decision is your submission, your presentation, the interview and your written assignment.

If you don’t put much effort into the report, if you don’t drill yourself on the attributes the ICE are looking for, how are you going to persuade your reviewers that you’re a fit and proper person to admit as a member?

The ironic thing is that engineers who aren’t quite as good may feel less confident which leads to them putting in much more effort.

This (in my view) is the reason for these surprise results.

Don’t underestimate the preparation you’ll need. It’s a funny, convoluted process. It takes effort to learn how to swap your company’s lingo for the ICE’s. It is worth doing mock reviews with real reviewers if possible to try and learn how reviewers ask questions. The reviewers can’t ask leading questions but all their questions will be asked with particular aspects of the attributes in mind. You need to learn how to read between the lines to answer well.

I would possibly argue that making the report really good is the most important part of your preparation. See more about that in my article on writing a great report.

How tough your reviewers are

The truth is that this factor is strongly linked to how much effort you’ve put into your report (although I think some reviewers are tougher than others).

Even a tough reviewer is unlikely to give you a tough interview if they really liked your report. Conversely even the softest reviewer is unlikely to give you an easy ride if your report gave them concerns or if it just wasn’t very good.

All the reviewers I’ve spoken to and co-reviewed with much prefer reviews where the candidate passes. It’s a bit depressing failing someone (and it’s extra paperwork). But I believe the pass rate is generally somewhere between 60-70% so quite a high proportion do fail.

Conclusion

I think if you are good enough to be admitted as a member, and you prepare well, you’re very, very unlikely to get an unpleasant surprise on results day.

So, make sure you get the experience and knowledge you need, prepare well and go for it.