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Phase 6 · Prepare for the review

The 15-minute presentation

Choosing what to expand on, structuring it, and the mistake almost every candidate makes first time.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage

Fifteen minutes, on an aspect of your report, expanded. Not a summary of the report, and not a summary of your CV — and that instruction is where most first drafts go wrong.

What ICE specifies

Institution of Civil Engineers

  • Your review begins with a 15-minute presentation delivered to your reviewers, based on an aspect of your Professional Review report.
  • The content should expand upon an aspect of your report. It should not cover all the attributes, nor should it be a summary of your CV or of your report.
  • You are encouraged to use visual aids. Online, you present them on screen via MS Teams.
  • If your review is in person, you deliver the presentation seated across the table, with visual aids no larger than A3. You may use a laptop, but no external power supply is provided.
  • If you take longer than 15 minutes, your reviewers may stop you so the interview can proceed.
Presentation length
15minutesRun over and your reviewers may stop you so the interview can proceed.
In-person presentation visual aids
no larger than A3A laptop is permitted in person, but no external power supply is provided — arrive charged and bring your cable.

From Incorporated and Chartered Professional Review Guidance, Institution of Civil Engineers.

A shape for the fifteen-minute presentationA suggested division of fifteen minutes: two minutes setting the scene, five on the engineering, five on your decisions, two on the outcome and what you learned, and one to close.15 MINUTES — REVIEWERS MAY STOP YOU IF YOU RUN OVER12 min25 min35 min42 min51 min1 Set the scene — where you were, and what the problem was2 The engineering — the part of your report you chose to expand3 Your decisions — the options, your judgement, and why you chose4 What it led to — the outcome, and what you learned5 Close — one sentence they will rememberWhat ICE actually asks forIt should expand upon an aspect of your report — go deeper into something, rather than covering more ground.It should not cover all the attributes, and it should not summarise your CV or your report.Visual aids are encouraged. Online you share them on screen; in person they are no larger than A3.In person you may use a laptop, but no external power is provided — arrive charged, and bring your cable.

Expand, do not summarise

The word is "expand". Your reviewers have already read the report. Spending fifteen minutes walking them through what they read is fifteen minutes in which they learn nothing new — and it is the single most common presentation mistake.

What works is going deeper into one thing. Take one decision from your report, or one technical problem, and give it the space the report could not. Show the analysis. Show the option you rejected and what it would have cost. Show the drawing you could only reference. Show what went wrong and what you did.

A useful test: if a reviewer could have got everything in your presentation from reading the report, choose a different subject.

Choosing the subject

The best subjects have four properties:

  1. 01You made a decision in it. A presentation about a project has no engine; a presentation about a decision does.
  2. 02It has depth you had to leave out. If the report covered it fully, there is nothing to expand.
  3. 03You can be questioned on it happily. Whatever you present, you will be asked about — so present your strongest material, not the material you feel you ought to cover.
  4. 04It is visual. Something with a drawing, a model, a photograph or a graph in it is far easier to hold attention with for fifteen minutes.

It does not need to cover all the attributes. ICE says so specifically. Trying to touch all seven in fifteen minutes produces a shallow presentation and wastes the one part of the day you fully control.

Delivering it

Worth doing

  • Rehearse to time, out loud, standing or sitting as you will on the day. Reading it silently always underestimates.
  • Build in a minute of slack. Nerves speed most people up and slow a few down.
  • Start with the problem, not with your job title.
  • Use visual aids that do work — a drawing you can point at beats a bulleted list of what you are saying.
  • Prepare for the questions your own presentation invites. If you show a graph, expect to be asked about the assumptions behind it.
  • Have a version that survives the technology failing: know your material well enough to talk without slides.

Avoid

  • Summarise the report. They have read it.
  • Walk through your CV.
  • Try to cover all seven attribute areas.
  • Fill slides with text and then read them.
  • Use an animation-heavy deck. It adds risk and no information.
  • Run over. Reviewers may stop you, and the time comes out of your interview.

Fictional example

Two presentation subjects from the same report

Fictional example — a candidate whose report covers a pumping station and a culvert renewal

Weaker

'My Professional Review' — an overview of my career, my role at Northgate, the pumping station project, the culvert project, and how they demonstrate the seven attributes.

Stronger

'Choosing between rehabilitation and replacement on the Eastgate culvert' — the condition evidence, the three options, the whole-life and carbon comparison, why the middle option won, the assumption it turned on, and what I would check differently next time.

Why — The second has a question in it, so it has somewhere to go. It will also produce far better interview questions, because it invites reviewers into the candidate's strongest material rather than inviting them to find the weakest.

Presentation checklist

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Related pages and tools

Read the official guidance