How do I write all three career episodes for CDR?

Answer:

Career Episodes of your CDR form a very important section. This is where you get complete autonomy to identify the three best projects from your academic/professional background (relevant to the occupational role). Your role in these project teams should have given you the scope to depict those competency elements that the EA assessors would be keen to see in you. Yes, the Career Episodes give the perfect platform to showcase your applied engineering abilities to the EA (Engineers Australia).

Let’s understand a little bit more about the Career Episodes

In order to better understand the need to write these Career Episodes, you must know that your CDR comprises of three different sections.

CPD (Continuing Professional Development): The section asks for the training and courses you have attended; workshops and seminars you have participated/convened; projects you have worked upon; journals you have subscribed to; or, a white paper you have submitted. Essentially, you are letting the assessors know that you have been consistently working your way forward to enhance your competencies and skills in your engineering domain.

Career Episodes: These three Episodes, each being 1000-2500 words give you the leverage to choose the best/most strategic project during your qualifying degree/professional work experience, which in any manner brings out the competencies that the EA is looking out in you. You must choose three different projects for the three Career Episodes and make sure that you are able to cover most of the desired competency elements.

Every paragraph of your Career Episode must be duly marked with units and indicators provided by the EA in the Migration Skills Assessment booklet.

The Summary Statement: This is the last, but the most important section of your CPD. This section helps the assessor look at the specific competency element and refer the precise paragraph in your Career Episode (marked with matching units and indicators). The section is all about providing a quick summary, instead of making the assessors go through the three episodes entirely, over and over again.

As you can see, the three sections are pretty well related and complement each other to provide a holistic picture of your skills and abilities in the engineering domain that you work in. From competencies, skills through applied engineering practices, to professional achievements that helped make your mark, it is all out there for the assessors to see.

Now, the important task is to write the three Career Episodes well. It shouldn’t be an essay that nobody wants to read. Neither should it be a forceful display of technical jargons, graphs, or numerals. These should rather tell a story and simultaneously elaborate on your abilities as an engineer.

Here are some tips to write the three Career Episodes well:

1. Choose the most relevant projects from your professional journey. Projects that gave opportunity and helped bring out the skilled engineer in you.
2. Ensure that the three projects are not over-riding each other. They must be exclusive events/instances.
3. Use an active speech of writing in your Career Episodes, to emphasize that it’s your own story
4. Do not give undue significance to team goals and team roles. The EA assessors want to know your skills and see that you have a good understanding of their practical implementation.
5. Elaborate on your role, with a job description and organogram
6. Share the skills and competencies the task required and how you demonstrated that
7. Use the opportunity to also showcase your team building skill,  interpersonal abilities, and leadership skills
8. Also, emphasize on actions that you took towards employee satisfaction; employee and environmental safety
9. You can elaborate on the software used; database and network topologies
10. Do not make the Episodes look very technical with numerals and graphs
11. Use precise Australian English and follow the structure desired by the EA
12. Mark all paragraphs with the units and indicators desired. For instance, the paragraphs of Career Episode 1 will be marked as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3…; Career Episode 2 as 2.1, 2.2, 2.3…; Career Episode 3 as 3.1, 3.2, 3.3…etc.

So this is how you can actually work your way across the three Career Episodes with absolute clarity. For detailed instructions, you can go through the MSA booklet provided by the EA. Also, you can use expert assistance for writing your Career Episodes by the best CDR writers.