Forum / Professional Development / ICE / Question bank Phase 6 · Prepare for the review
Interview question bank Original practice questions across all seven areas and both levels, each with what it is testing and what a strong answer contains.
Who this is for: Candidates at any stage · Mentors
1 Get your bearings · 2 Settle your educational base · 3 Complete your IPD · 4 Build your evidence · 5 Write and submit · 6 Prepare for the review · 7 Your result A bank of original questions, filterable by attribute area, level, discipline, employment setting and type. Each one comes with why it may be asked, what it is testing, what weak and strong answers look like, and where the follow-up usually goes.
A memorised answer sounds memorised, and it collapses at the first follow-up question. What is given for each question is the shape of a strong response — the parts that need to be in it — so that you can construct your own from your own work.
Attribute area All areas 1. Engineering 2. Management and leadership 3. Commercial 4. Health, safety and welfare 5. Sustainable development 6. Communication 7. Professional commitment
Level Both levels IEng CEng
Type All types Confirming your evidence Going deeper Alternatives and counterfactuals Failure and lessons Technical fundamentals Ethical judgement Current issues Unfamiliar scenarios The profession
Setting All settings Design Construction Client Contractor Consultant Asset owner Project management Any setting
Difficulty Any Straightforward Searching Hard
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180 questions
Take me through your career so far, in about two minutes. Communication Straightforward Why do you want to become professionally registered? Professional commitment Straightforward Which of your projects are you most proud of, and why? Engineering Professional commitment Straightforward Talk me through the most technically difficult problem you have solved. Engineering Searching How did you know your design was right? Engineering Searching Tell me about a time your first answer turned out to be wrong. Engineering Professional commitment Searching Which code or standard governed your design, and where does it stop helping? Engineering Hard Explain a piece of software you used and what it does not tell you. Engineering Searching You introduced a new technique. How did you satisfy yourself it was safe to use? Engineering CEng Hard How do you keep your technical knowledge current? Engineering Professional commitment Straightforward Describe a time you had to make a decision with incomplete information. Engineering Management and leadership Searching What happens to what you designed at the end of its life? Engineering Sustainable development Searching Take me through the calculation in Appendix B. Engineering Hard What is the biggest risk in the design you have described? Engineering Health, safety and welfare Searching How did you decide the level of analysis was appropriate? Engineering CEng Hard Describe a technical disagreement with a colleague and how it was resolved. Engineering Communication Searching What does buildability mean in the context of something you designed? Engineering Health, safety and welfare Searching How would you approach a problem in a discipline you have not worked in? Engineering Professional commitment Searching Tell me about a programme you built and what went wrong with it. Management and leadership Searching Describe a time you had to allocate resources you did not have enough of. Management and leadership Searching Give me an example of leading people who did not report to you. Management and leadership CEng Searching Who is better at their job because of you? Management and leadership CEng Searching How do you assure yourself that work you delegated has been done properly? Management and leadership Engineering Searching Tell me about someone in your team who was not performing. Management and leadership Hard How do you make sure quality processes actually catch anything? Management and leadership Searching What did you do when your programme and your quality requirements conflicted? Management and leadership Health, safety and welfare Hard Describe how you plan a piece of work from a standing start. Management and leadership IEng Straightforward How did you organise and direct a team through a change of direction? Management and leadership Communication CEng Hard What is the difference between managing and leading, in your experience? Management and leadership CEng Searching Tell me about a time you had to manage a specialist whose field you did not understand. Management and leadership Professional commitment CEng Hard What was the value of the budget you personally controlled? Commercial Straightforward Tell me about a time a cost ran over and what you did. Commercial Searching Which form of contract were you working under, and what did it mean for you? Commercial Searching Describe a change or variation you assessed. Commercial Engineering Searching Where did you trade cost against risk or quality? Commercial Engineering CEng Hard How does your work make or lose money for your employer? Commercial Searching What statutory requirements applied to your project? Commercial Health, safety and welfare Searching Tell me about a time you advised against something on commercial grounds. Commercial Professional commitment CEng Hard How did you build a cost estimate, and how wrong was it? Commercial Searching What is the difference between cost, price and value? Commercial CEng Searching Which CDM duty holder were you on your principal project? Health, safety and welfare Straightforward Name a hazard you eliminated by design, and one you could not. Health, safety and welfare Engineering Searching Tell me about a time you stopped work, or refused to sign something. Health, safety and welfare Professional commitment Hard What health and safety legislation applies to your work, and how current is your knowledge of it? Health, safety and welfare Professional commitment Searching Describe a risk assessment where your input changed the method. Health, safety and welfare Searching How have you shown leadership on health and safety, rather than compliance? Health, safety and welfare CEng Hard Tell me about an incident or near miss you were involved in. Health, safety and welfare Hard What have you done about welfare or mental health, as distinct from physical safety? Health, safety and welfare Searching You see unsafe work on a site you are visiting but do not control. What do you do? Health, safety and welfare Professional commitment Searching How did you design for the people who will maintain or operate it? Health, safety and welfare Sustainable development Searching What did you do differently because of sustainability? Sustainable development Searching Where is the carbon in what you designed or built? Sustainable development Engineering Searching Tell me about a whole-life argument you made, and whether it won. Sustainable development Commercial CEng Hard What did your project make worse? Sustainable development Professional commitment Hard How do you balance a client's cost target against a lower-carbon option? Sustainable development Commercial Communication Hard What does the climate the asset will live in mean for what you designed? Sustainable development Engineering Hard What did you reuse rather than replace, and how did you justify it? Sustainable development Engineering Searching How would you explain the industry's decarbonisation challenge to someone outside it? Sustainable development Communication Searching Explain the technical heart of your project as if I were not an engineer. Communication Searching Tell me about the hardest thing you have had to tell someone at work. Communication Professional commitment Hard Describe a time you changed a decision because of what someone else told you. Communication Engineering Searching Tell me about a public or stakeholder engagement you took part in. Communication Searching What have you done about diversity and inclusion? Communication Searching How do you decide what to leave out of a technical report? Communication Searching Describe a conflict you had with a client or contractor and how it ended. Communication Commercial Hard How did you brief people on a change of method so that it was actually followed? Communication Health, safety and welfare Searching Which document that you wrote are you most pleased with, and why? Communication Straightforward Tell me about an ethical dilemma you have faced at work. Professional commitment Hard What does the ICE Code of Conduct require of you? Professional commitment Searching What are you not competent to do? Professional commitment Searching What has your CPD changed about the way you work? Professional commitment Searching What have you contributed to the profession beyond your job? Professional commitment Searching Your employer asks you to do something you believe is wrong. What do you do? Professional commitment Hard You discover a mistake in work that has already been built. What now? Professional commitment Engineering Health, safety and welfare Hard How would you handle a conflict of interest? Professional commitment Commercial Searching A colleague asks you to sign off work you have not checked. What do you do? Professional commitment Engineering Searching How will your professional obligations change once you are registered? Professional commitment Searching What is the biggest challenge facing civil engineering at the moment? Professional commitment Sustainable development Searching How should infrastructure be made more resilient? Sustainable development Engineering Hard What difference is digital engineering making to your work? Engineering Management and leadership Searching What are the risks of using artificial intelligence in engineering? Engineering Professional commitment Hard Why does the industry struggle to attract and keep people? Professional commitment Communication Searching What did a recent industry failure teach the profession? Engineering Professional commitment Health, safety and welfare CEng Hard How would you explain to a resident why their road is closed for six months? Communication Searching What would you say to a school group about civil engineering? Communication Professional commitment Straightforward As a designer, how do you know your design can be built safely? Health, safety and welfare Engineering Searching As a contractor's engineer, how do you challenge a design you think is wrong? Engineering Communication Commercial Searching As a client-side engineer, how do you hold designers to account without designing for them? Management and leadership Engineering CEng Hard In asset management, how do you decide what not to fix? Commercial Engineering Sustainable development Hard As a project manager, what is the engineering part of your job now? Engineering Management and leadership Hard You work in a specialist niche. How do you show breadth? Engineering Professional commitment Searching In your report you say 'we decided'. Who actually decided? Communication Engineering Searching What part of this project did you not understand at the time? Professional commitment Engineering Searching If you started this project again tomorrow, what would you do differently? Engineering Professional commitment Searching What would have changed your mind about that decision? Engineering Hard Your CV says one thing and your report suggests another. Can you explain? Communication Professional commitment Searching What is the most useful thing you learned from someone junior to you? Management and leadership Communication Searching Tell me about a project that failed, in any sense. Engineering Management and leadership Professional commitment Hard Where in your report is your weakest evidence? Professional commitment CEng Hard You arrive on site and the ground is not what the investigation said. What do you do? Engineering Management and leadership Commercial Searching A client asks you to reduce the design to save money, and you think it is marginal. What now? Commercial Engineering Professional commitment Hard You inherit a project that is behind and over budget. What are your first three actions? Management and leadership Commercial Communication CEng Hard Your specialist subcontractor's design does not look right to you. What do you do? Engineering Professional commitment Hard You are asked to work on something in a country whose standards you do not know. How do you proceed? Engineering Professional commitment CEng Hard How would you approach designing something you have never designed before? Engineering Professional commitment Searching A junior engineer brings you a calculation you think is wrong. How do you handle it? Management and leadership Communication Engineering Searching How would you handle a whistleblowing situation? Professional commitment Health, safety and welfare CEng Hard Explain load path in something you have worked on. Engineering Searching What is the difference between a limit state and a factor of safety? Engineering Searching How does water affect the problem you described? Engineering Searching What controlled your design — strength, stiffness, or something else? Engineering Searching What is the most common mode of failure in the sort of work you do? Engineering Health, safety and welfare Hard How would you check a result you had no independent means of verifying? Engineering Professional commitment CEng Hard What did you assume, and what if the assumption were wrong? Engineering Searching How do tolerances affect what you designed or built? Engineering Searching What is the temporary condition, and is it worse than the permanent one? Engineering Health, safety and welfare Hard How did you specify materials, and why those? Engineering Sustainable development Searching Talk me through a technique you selected and why it was the right one. Engineering IEng Searching How do you contribute to continuous improvement where you work? Engineering Management and leadership IEng Straightforward How do you manage your own workload against other people's priorities? Management and leadership Communication IEng Straightforward How do you assist colleagues to meet changing technical needs? Management and leadership IEng Straightforward How did you define the requirements for something, rather than receive them? Engineering CEng Hard Where have you accepted responsibility for something that went wrong? Professional commitment Management and leadership CEng Hard Give me an example of holistic judgement — where technical, commercial, safety and environmental factors pulled in different directions. Engineering Commercial Health, safety and welfare Sustainable development CEng Hard How have you promoted best practice beyond your own team? Management and leadership Professional commitment CEng Hard Tell me about communicating a new concept to a non-technical stakeholder. Communication CEng Hard Is there anything you have not had the chance to tell us? Professional commitment Communication Straightforward What will you do next, professionally, once this is behind you? Professional commitment Straightforward What did you have to investigate before you could start designing? Engineering CEng Searching How do you decide when a design is finished? Engineering Commercial Searching Describe something you specified that turned out to be difficult to build. Engineering Health, safety and welfare Searching How do you handle an interface with another discipline? Engineering Communication Management and leadership Searching What is the most important thing you check on a drawing before it is issued? Engineering IEng Straightforward How much of your engineering work is checked by someone else? Engineering Management and leadership Searching Tell me about a piece of research or investigation you did to solve a problem. Engineering Searching What is the difference between the model and the structure? Engineering CEng Hard How do you run a meeting that reaches a decision? Management and leadership Communication Straightforward Tell me about a risk you managed that was not a safety risk. Management and leadership Commercial Searching How do you handle work being taken away from you, or given to you late? Management and leadership Communication IEng Straightforward Describe how you brought a team together after something went badly. Management and leadership Communication CEng Hard What does good look like in a team you have run? Management and leadership CEng Searching How do you decide who does what? Management and leadership Searching What does your organisation's procurement route mean for how you work? Commercial Management and leadership Hard Tell me about a time you had to justify your fee or your cost to someone. Commercial Communication Searching Where does the money come from for the work you do? Commercial Sustainable development Searching How do you make sure a change is agreed before it is done? Commercial Management and leadership Searching What information did you have to pass on to whoever comes next? Health, safety and welfare Communication Searching How do you make sure a subcontractor's safety standards match yours? Health, safety and welfare Management and leadership Hard What would you do if you were asked to work in a way you thought was unsafe? Health, safety and welfare Professional commitment Searching How do you keep safety alive on a job that has been running for two years without incident? Health, safety and welfare Management and leadership CEng Hard Should we be building this at all? Sustainable development Professional commitment CEng Hard How would you measure whether your project was sustainable? Sustainable development Hard What does the circular economy mean for civil engineering? Sustainable development Engineering Searching How do you deal with a sustainability requirement you think is tokenistic? Sustainable development Professional commitment CEng Hard How do you write for someone who will only read the first paragraph? Communication Searching Tell me about a time you were misunderstood. Communication Searching How do you communicate uncertainty to someone who wants a straight answer? Communication Engineering CEng Hard What makes a good technical note? Communication IEng Straightforward What would make you refuse to put your name to something? Professional commitment Hard How do you deal with pressure? Professional commitment Management and leadership Searching What professional bodies or networks are you part of, and what do you get from them? Professional commitment Straightforward How do you decide whether advice you have been given is sound? Professional commitment Engineering CEng Hard What does public safety mean in your day-to-day work? Professional commitment Health, safety and welfare Searching A client asks you to leave something out of a report. What do you do? Professional commitment Communication Hard Your programme requires an activity that you know cannot be done safely in the time. What do you do? Health, safety and welfare Management and leadership Commercial Hard You are asked to take on more work than you can do properly. What do you do? Professional commitment Management and leadership Searching A long-standing practice in your organisation looks wrong to you. What do you do? Engineering Professional commitment Management and leadership CEng Hard You are the only person who has spotted a problem. Nobody agrees with you. What do you do? Engineering Professional commitment Communication CEng Hard Your programme, your budget and your quality requirements cannot all be met. Which goes? Management and leadership Commercial Engineering CEng Hard You find that a colleague has been signing off work they are not competent to check. What do you do? Professional commitment Management and leadership CEng Hard How should the industry improve its productivity? Management and leadership Engineering CEng Hard What role should engineers play in public debate about infrastructure? Communication Professional commitment Searching How should infrastructure be funded? Commercial Sustainable development CEng Hard What does water security mean for engineers in this country? Sustainable development Engineering Searching What are the security risks in the way we design and operate infrastructure now? Engineering Professional commitment CEng Hard Which attribute area do you think you have evidenced best, and why? Professional commitment Straightforward How did you choose which projects to write about? Communication Professional commitment Straightforward What has changed on that project since you wrote about it? Engineering Professional commitment Searching Who would disagree with your account of that project? Professional commitment Communication CEng Hard What are you working on now, and what is difficult about it? Engineering Professional commitment Straightforward How to use it Filter to your weak areas first. The questions you enjoy answering are not the ones that need work.
Answer out loud, and time it. Two minutes is a long answer. Most candidates discover they are at four.
Record yourself once. It is unpleasant and it is the fastest way to notice that you say "we" throughout, or that you never actually answer the question.
Use them with your sponsor. Arranging practice interviews is part of the lead sponsor's role, and handing them a filtered list makes it easy for them to help.
Do not prepare answers to all of them. The point is not coverage; it is getting used to constructing an answer about your own work from a question you have not seen.
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