Do Engineers Australia verify your CDR projects for skill assessment?
Answer:
Yes, Engineers Australia certainly verifies the projects that you have claimed to be a part of in your migration visa application. They are the authorized assessment authority to approve your application and need to validate that you make the correct claims. They do so by way of reviewing the credibility of your claims. They understand your experience in the domain through the engineering projects that you have worked on and gauge your competence as a professional. As they understand the role that you played in different technical projects during the course of your professional journey, they are able to capture the skills and competencies that you bring along.
Choose the correct occupational category and ANZSCO code to apply for and understand the desired competency elements and their definitions better by going through the MSA booklet. It will also help you with specific guidelines for writing your CDR.
While the Competency Demonstration Report acts as a gate pass to your visa migration dreams to Australia, there are exemptions to its requirement. For instance, if you have completed your education from certain countries/regions or have followed the following accords:
- Australian Accord
- Washington Accord
- Sydney Accord
- Dublin Accord
As you try to capture the essence of the CDR requirements, it is better to take informed steps. Every year several thousands of engineers from across different regions of the world apply for a skilled migration visa to Australia. However, not everyone goes through the process successfully. Amongst those rejected applications, most of the ones are those who did not choose the correct course to apply. Either they had limited/wrong information or they did not understand the requirements correctly. What they had was immense competition and that is how their application got rejected.
Since the CDR acts as a window to your professional and technical prowess, you need to understand the course it needs to tread upon. For this reason, think wisely and chose the occupational category you would want to apply towards:
- Professional Engineer
- Engineering Technologist
- Engineering Associate
- Engineering Manager
As you identify the correct role, you are required to back the application with documentary claims that you are the perfect choice for the same. And, this includes the projects that you chose to mention in your Career Episodes. If chosen correctly, the projects will validate the claims strongly by elaborating on your proficiency. However, it can also go vice versa if you did not choose the projects wisely or chose a wrong role to apply for. Therefore, you must have the perfect understanding of a CDR and its requirements, at the very onset of the process.
Make sure that you are well-informed of its requirement and understand the larger picture. Moreover, you must be absolutely clear about the different sections of the CDR.
Continuing Professional Development: through this brief section of the report, you will help the assessor understand your interest in your domain. Let them know of different developmental initiatives that you have been a part of, or training that you completed, to keep yourself abreast of the changes in your functional domain. You can even share the journals that you subscribe to or any white paper that you have published.
Three Career Episodes: With every Career Episode that you write about, you can share an exclusive story that highlights your technical prowess or managerial skills. Take the assessor through the project at a holistic level, sharing details on your job description, targets, specific roles, team skills, etc. They will be keen to learn about specific initiatives towards employee safety or environmental benefit. This helps them understand you better as a professional and a person. Going through different project experiences of yours, they are also able to see an alignment between the skill set that you bring and the occupational role that you have applied for. Every Career Episode must range between 1000-2500 words, written in an active voice, with definitive sentences like “I tested”, “I aligned”, “I calculated”, etc.
The Summary Statement: This brief last section of the CDR is as important as the others. It helps the assessor review the report quickly by verifying your competency claims in your Career Episodes. You can do that by precisely marking each paragraph of your episodes with defined units and indicators and mapping them with a correct competency element in your Summary Statement.
Since you need to share everything about your academic and professional journey through your CDR; highlighting the milestones and achievements, in brief, the report holds the cards to your visa application approval. It’s better to move ahead with the report in an informed manner upon understanding all requirements clearly. You can also consult CDR writing experts to help you with the report writing or get yours reviewed before making a submission with EA.
