Phase 5 · Build your portfolio

The IPD final report forms

One form per Core Objective, and the three words IStructE uses for how to write them: personal, positive, practical.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors

Ten forms, one per Core Objective, completed once you have satisfied the IPD requirements — and on the individually managed route, signed by your personal mentor.

IStructE's advice for completing the forms

Institution of Structural Engineers

Personal — reviewers are not interested in what your company does, only in what you have done. State what you have personally undertaken and avoid generic statements about how your company operates.
Positive — do not sell yourself short. Avoid statements such as 'I have limited experience'; you either have experience or you do not. Use the word that matches the objective's standard: for an Ability objective, do not write experience or knowledge.
Practical — state how you achieved the standard. Candidates often fall into the trap of describing the objective, or explaining why it matters. Reviewers already know the subject; what they need is what you did.
The forms are downloaded from the Institution's website, and the font used in them must be no smaller than the portfolio minimum.

Minimum font size: Arial 10Applies to the portfolio and to the IPD final report forms.
Core Objectives: 10Compulsory, and all ten are assessed at the interview.

From IPD Guidance — Chartered Member, Institution of Structural Engineers.

The word you use is the claim you make

The third point above is sharper than it looks. Knowledge, Experience and Ability are not synonyms in this process — they are the three minimum standards, and each objective is set at one of them.

Writing "I have experience of…" on an objective set at Ability is not modesty. It is a statement, in the Institution's own vocabulary, that you have not met the standard. Go through all ten forms with the standards for your grade beside you and check the verb in every claim.

That check matters more for Incorporated-Member and Chartered candidates than it first appears, because the standards are not identical between the grades. Use the ones for the grade you are applying for.

Structure for each claim

Reviewers are reading for how you achieved the standard. A claim that does this has four parts, and they fit in a paragraph:

01What you did — the specific work, on a named project.
02At what level — unsupervised, supervised, advising others.
03The judgement — what you decided, and what you rejected.
04Where it is evidenced — the cross-reference into the portfolio.

Two or three claims of that kind carry an objective far better than a page of generalities.

Signing, and what the mentor is signing

On the individually managed route the forms are signed by your personal mentor. That signature attests to your development against the objectives as they have observed it. It is not a guarantee of the outcome, and no mentor, employer or peer can confirm that an objective has been achieved — that determination is made by IStructE's reviewers and its panel.

You also sign a declaration that the evidence submitted in the portfolio of work is your own.

Failing, and what has to be resubmitted

If the interview does not go your way, the scope of what you rewrite depends on how much was not met. Where a small number of objectives are failed, the re-interview is on those objectives only, and there is a limited window to clear them before forms for all ten have to be resubmitted. The current thresholds and window are on the interview page.

Ten forms, common errors

Worth doing

Write in the first person, about work you personally undertook
Use the exact standard word for that objective — knowledge, experience or ability
Give the project, the decision and the level of supervision
Cross-reference each claim to a page in the portfolio
Have your mentor read all ten together, looking for contradictions

Avoid

Describe the objective back to the reviewers
Explain why the subject is important
Write 'we' where you mean 'I'
Hedge with 'some' or 'limited'
Reuse the same project across every form