Engineers aspiring to migrate to Australia for work purposes need to get their skills assessed by Engineers Australia. CDR or Competency Demonstration Report is an important part of the migration skill assessment process. This report enables the Engineers Australia to assess the engineering skills and related competencies of the applicants as per Australian standards. CDR consists of three main components Career Episodes, CPD (Continuing Professional Development) and Summary Statement. Let us see how one can prepare Career Episodes for Engineers Australia.

Engineers Australia Career Episodes

The engineers are expected to write three Career Episodes in their CDR where each episode describes their engineering education and work experience. A career episode is based upon a certain time period in their career or a certain engineering activity that they performed for a significant period of time in their career. Each episode is about a different time period or a different engineering activity.

The main purpose of writing career episodes is to demonstrate one’s skills and how one has applied those in their engineering career. Career Episodes that are based on work experience require evidence of employment as well. These career episodes are submitted in the ‘Relevant Employment Section’ of the online application.

Some important features of Career Episodes for Engineers Australia

• A career episode can be based on the following aspects of one’s engineering career:
  1. Any engineering task that was significant in one’s engineering education career
  2. Any project, worth mentioning, on which the engineer has worked upon or is currently working on
  3. Any position in the company that the engineer has occupied (however, in this case, one should not restrict the career episode to just a statement describing the duties of that position)
  4. Any engineering problem on which the engineer has worked upon and solved successfully
• The Career Episodes are to be written in English. This also gives the engineers a good opportunity to showcase their language competencies and impress the CDR assessors.
• Each career episode should be written in around 1000 to 2500 words. So there is no need to provide extensive technical information in the career episodes.
• Each career episode must demonstrate how the applicant applied their engineering skills in the occupation that they have nominated for migration skill assessment. Hence one has to explain what role they played in that episode in details. However, they are not required to present any technical details.
• The engineers need to explain how they solved a particular engineering problem, what strategies were used to solve that problem and their role in formulating the solution.
• It is necessary to number the paragraphs in each career episode as the career episodes are referenced in the Summary Statement. For instance, for Career Episode 1, the applicant can number the paragraphs as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and so on. Similarly, for Career Episode 2, the applicant can number the paragraphs as 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and so on.
• Career Episodes for Engineers Australia are written in the first person as one needs to indicate their personal role in the episode. One needs to mention the things that they actually ‘did’ and were not just ‘involved’ in them. The applicant’s personal role should be clear to the assessors.

Format for a Career Episode Engineers Australia

The Career Episodes are not written in any tabular form like the Summary Statement in CDR. Each Career Episode is divided into 4 sections:

1. Introduction – as the name suggests one should introduce the career episode to the assessor first. This is done by providing a little information about the episode like the start date, the duration, the location of the career episode, the name of the organization of the career episode.
2. Background – after providing a little introduction, the next step is to provide some background details of the episode. This includes the objective of the project or activity that you are discussing in the career episode, the nature of work done, the structure of your organization, your duties etc.
3. Personal Engineering Activity – This is the main section of a career episode. Here, the applicant needs to provide the details of the episode. One should state the work actually done by them, what they did and how they did. The applicant must clearly state their role in the project and not just mention what the team did. This section should include the following things:
   • How the engineer applied their engineering skills
   • What tasks were assigned to the applicant in their career episode and how they handled them
   • What difficulties the engineer had to face while undergoing those tasks and how these difficulties were tackled
   • What strategies were used by the applicant to solve the problems
   • How the engineer coordinated with other team members in order to achieve the goals of the project
4. Summary – this section would serve as a small conclusion of the career episode. One can mention an overall perspective of the project, was it successful or not, what goals were fulfilled and their personal contribution in making it a success.

Word Count for Each Section of the Career Episode

Plagiarism Issues in Career Episodes

As you are learning how to write a career episode for your report, you must understand that plagiarized career episodes can lead to serious consequences. Engineers Australia mentions clearly that the Career Episodes should be unique and should be written by the applicants themselves. Anything which is copied from other sources or sample CDR documents is considered plagiarism by Engineers Australia. If any of the Career Episode is found to be plagiarized the Engineers Australia imposes a 12-month ban on the applicant and reports the same to the Department of Home Affairs for further action.

With this, we hope you got an insight on how to write Career Episodes for Engineers Australia. Your Competency Demonstration Report is an important document and your positive assessment of the CDR is majorly based on how you write the Career Episodes. Hence do take care of the format and effective usage of English to win the trust of the assessors.