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Episode 23 – Part 3 – Preparing for the APC, passing professional exams and common mistakes with Jen Lemen
48 Plays2 years ago
In PART 3, of this week's episode with Jen Lemen, we're discussing how to prepare for the APC, passing professional exams and common mistakes in the process.
Across the three parts of this episode, we are discussing routes into the surveying industry, the benefits of the different qualifications and understanding what types of work you can take on.
Jen Lemen is a co-founder of Property Elite, Chartered Surveyor and RICS APC assessor. She is the author of 'How to Become a Chartered Surveyor', published by Routledge.
Jen has extensive experience in providing training services to students, RICS AssocRICS, APC and FRICS candidates and corporate clients, together with academic experience as a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England, Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, External Examiner at the University of Westminster and Associate Tutor at the University College of Estate Management. Her RICS assessment experience includes sitting on final APC interview panels, APC appeal panels and being a lead APC preliminary review assessor.
In part 3, we discuss:
📗 Jen's new book on mandatory competencies, which will provide a comprehensive knowledge base for candidates.
📝 Importance of making notes during CPD activities to build your own knowledge base
📚 Jen's experience with distance learning while working full-time 💭 Common interview mistakes and how to improve
🥸 Improving your test preparations
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Transcript
Preparing for Membership Qualifications
00:00:00
Speaker
So in our final topic, we're going to look at how you can effectively prepare for the different sort of routes or levels of memberships when you're going into qualifying. I suppose one of the things we'll look at is the types of resources available to people to help them prepare, whether it's RCS resources, you know, that you've got a book out and so on. But yeah, do you want to touch on the types of things that are available? And then perhaps we can also look at, you know, your story behind how you progress through the levels and, you know,
00:00:30
Speaker
how you've prepared and how that's changed over the years.
RICS Resources Overview
00:00:34
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So probably the starting point for any candidate is going back to what the RACS provides. So any candidate looking at associate or the APC, 100% must have read the candidate guide. It tells you what you need to do, how to do it,
00:00:55
Speaker
basically gives you everything you need to know. The RICS also have a web page for each qualification. That will give you a link to the online RICS assessment platform where you submit your documents and some great user guides on how to use the platform and how the Councillor sign off process works as well.
00:01:16
Speaker
The RICS on the website also have a pathway guide for every single pathway, and that's a different pathway guide for associate and MRICS for all the different pathways. It tells you about all the competencies. It splits it down per level, and it will tell you what you need to know, what you need to have done, say level one, level two, and then level three, what have you advised on for associate,
00:01:45
Speaker
that will just be what you need to know and it gives plenty of examples of different types of work that fit within the different competencies. So as a very bare minimum candidate guide, our ICS website
00:02:00
Speaker
and the relevant pathway guide.
Supplementary Learning Materials
00:02:04
Speaker
Outside of that, there are some great resources available. Candidates might have seen a book I've written called, How to Become a Charter Surveyor. It literally does what it says on the tin. There are sections on all of the different, the membership levels, routes, how to write up your submission,
00:02:30
Speaker
what happens in the interview, it's got everything in there. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I feel like I want to announce it somewhere. So I've got another book coming out. Hopefully, maybe next year, I don't know the publication date, but it's going to be looking, so this is a special one for you on this, which is on the mandatory competencies.
00:02:52
Speaker
That basically takes the RICS pathway guide and gives you anything, everything you need to know on those. So that will be out soon. Other good resources. So obviously you need to build it with CPD records and obviously a really good knowledge base.
00:03:12
Speaker
We've got a blog on our website. I've written it every single week for the past seven years, which, if you do the maths, is quite a lot of blogs. They've got podcasts and just an audio recording on YouTube you can listen to. There's so many good podcasts, just like this one, Surveyorherb, RICS.
00:03:35
Speaker
YouTube videos. There's so much good content out there. Some of the law firms do excellent webinars, papers, blogs, et cetera, on a wide variety of topics. I'd say a really basic Google search on a specific area of knowledge can lead candidates down a rabbit hole and a rabbit warring of information.
00:04:01
Speaker
I think the key thing, if you're reading the candidate guide, if you're reading a blog, if you're listening to a podcast actually is start a Word document and make your own notes on what you hear. So you're building it your own knowledge base, something that you've processed, you've understood, and then you can keep that and use it throughout drafting your submission and then going to interview if you're an APC candidate. Nice, and it's a good thing to be able to look back at and review actually.
00:04:31
Speaker
It's quite exciting that you've got another book coming out and look, we'll have to potentially have to have another discussion when that comes out to go around the topics around that.
Surveyor Career Journey
00:04:41
Speaker
I suppose one thing that might be useful to cover shortly will be sort of what are the things people tend to do well around preparation and what they don't do as well typically. But is it worth touching on your story? Because I know you mentioned, I think it was in our first topic around
00:05:00
Speaker
that your motivation for going for RCS was because your family had all done it in terms of your grandparents and dad and so on. Do you want to give us a bit of background first, I suppose, on what your process looked like and motivations and so on? Then we can potentially look at how that looks for others in terms of preparing in the best way.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So when I was growing up, I always remember the school holidays. My dad did carters around different shopping centers. He's now retired, but he worked in shopping center management. So we'd go around Blue Water. We'd go around White Rose and Sheffield. We'd literally just go around shopping centers in the school holidays. You'd take it behind the scenes. We'd see all the cool stuff in the center.
00:05:50
Speaker
You know, I went with one of a couple of work trips, we went to Portugal. It was brilliant, but I saw what he did and I thought that looks really interesting. You know, he gets to meet people, he gets to travel, appears to like what he does. But he never said to me, well, you know, I'd love it if you were going to be a surveyor. I was just, my parents always kind of just let me do what my heart told me I should be doing. So,
00:06:17
Speaker
I actually went to university and did sport science at the university of Bath. Love sport, love science still do, but I absolutely hated it. So after a year and a half, I dropped out and I said, I remember saying to my dad, I can't do it. I've got, you know, I've got, I've got to quit and I, you know, I don't know what to go and do next. And at that point it popped into my head of, well, my dad's a surveyor and he seems to like it. And I remember what, you know,
00:06:46
Speaker
watching and being a surveyor. So I thought, well, go and do that because yeah, it sounded like a good idea and it looked like there was a more solid career path, you know, good salary, good benefits. It'd be interesting. So I didn't do it kind of the traditional way. I applied to University of the West of England and went for a part-time course. So it's five years.
00:07:14
Speaker
First couple of years I did on day release. The same time I was really lucky to get a job in Bristol. I worked for a sole practitioner supporting him on really general practice, surveying mainly commercial, but, you know, a couple of bits of residential. After a couple of years I moved on and that's when I started for my now business partner, Rachel. And actually that, you know, she's one of the people who really mentored me and supported me through
00:07:44
Speaker
through all of this, and eventually she said to me, well, you're on day release, but I'd actually quite like you to be in the office five days a week. So I said to you, well, I'm not coming in anymore. Can I do it by distance learning? Which went down very well with some people, not very well with others. It was maybe before the advent of anything really being online. Yeah, yeah. You know, you sit in the classroom
00:08:10
Speaker
I learned so that was interesting. Was that quite challenging then to do things remotely then? Well, you know what, I absolutely loved it because I don't know whether I've just got a short attention span or I'm so self-motivated just to get it done.
00:08:32
Speaker
It, motivation wasn't really a problem and just did everything I could to make sure that it worked, but a hundred percent that wouldn't work for everybody. Um, and you did put a bit of a stop on life for, you know, especially the last few years to just go, well, you know, this is my focus. I'm going to get through this and I'll think about everything else later on. Um, so, yeah, so I graduated brilliant first class. Um,
00:09:02
Speaker
Uh, yeah, first class did really well, really pleased, um, moved at the career ranks at that job. Um, which maybe because we've talked about qualifications, I'd say my job role at the time didn't reflect the fact that I wasn't qualified to not being qualified. Didn't hold me back. Um, and it probably did in the end in terms of moving up to, um, the, the, the much higher levels. And I think, you know, politics is always, but, um,
00:09:32
Speaker
probably, no, I don't know. It must've been, it must've been 12 months after that though. It must've been the earliest that I could have got qualified. So earliest day I could, did my submission, went to interview, passed, and then went probably maybe a year or so after that, we left to set up our own firm. And that's when I did my FRICS. To be honest, I was just so, I was just so proud. Yeah, I can imagine.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, Dad and Granddad both charted surveyors and it was just a really lovely, yeah, just really lovely to say I've done something and you all understand how challenging it was to get there, so. I can imagine. Yeah, it's quite a good story. Yeah, it's a lovely story actually and it's funny how a path you might set out on, when it doesn't go how you thought it might initially actually end up being
00:10:32
Speaker
you know, going in a better direction, but you can't, you just have to sort of, you know, accept the journey you're on. I suppose is, but it's, um, it's interesting how you end up getting moved back to the right thing. You know, you can't try and force something, but when you get the motivation there, you can really drive yourself forward and you know, achieve what you want to. Yeah, definitely. I suppose, I suppose my question from there then is from your experience of having gone through both Emrix and Netflix.
Candidate Challenges and Strategies
00:10:59
Speaker
And when you work with people, obviously regularly going through the process, what do people typically do really well? And where do they potentially fall into pitfalls going through the process? Yeah, sure. I think it really depends on you as an individual, say. I know some people really, really struggle with writing up the submission. They just can't put a bit of writer's block
00:11:27
Speaker
They can't write, they find it really difficult to write in the way that our ICS wants to see. I'd say we do see some really, really poor submissions. Sometimes it is due to a lack of support and guidance from the counselor, looking at examples in competencies and the right knowledge. But sometimes written work is just something that people struggle with.
00:11:54
Speaker
really, really good way, you know, obviously apart from getting some support is actually the Grammarly app. Yes. Which I'd say particularly the paid version because it adds on, you know, things like fluency and phrasing. If you're not amazing at being able to, you know, write something that's, you know, Pulitzer Prize winning, actually the Grammarly app can really help you to learn
00:12:19
Speaker
how to do that. So there are some great tools out there to do a good submission. Yeah, definitely. Maybe some of the candidates who struggled a bit with the written work actually perform really well at interview because they can talk the way around the work, they can explain things, they come across really well. On the flip side, some candidates
00:12:41
Speaker
just hate that pressured interview environment and nerves, confidence, stress around the interview really, really affects some candidates. And in a way, sometimes there's nothing you can do about it, but it's putting yourself through lots of mock interviews, lots of practice, looking at ways that you can reduce nerves,
00:13:10
Speaker
you know, some of the things like mindfulness, meditation, visualization, all of those things and just getting some extra support to help you through it can be a really, really good thing to do. On that note, what do people tend to do wrong if it's an interview route for say a membership level? Is it prep or is it
00:13:36
Speaker
Is it just being nervous on the day or is it not having the right examples or not answering the question perhaps? Yeah, sometimes nerves do get the better of people. But as assessors, we know we were nervous. We know that you're going to be nervous. So a really well-trained assessor will help the candidate through that, given time to answer questions, ask questions in a really direct, direct way.
00:14:05
Speaker
Nerves, I wouldn't say, would be the number one reason. I think some candidates just don't know their submission, so they've written it, they've put it aside, and they've treated the interview like an exam. So they might know lots, but if you've put an example, I don't know, a level three in Bristol, and we ask you about it, and you go, sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, not knowing what you've written up can be a rule.
00:14:34
Speaker
a real challenge. So that prep around knowing what you've done and the knowledge behind it is really important. I was going to say some candidates just fail to listen. So I don't know if we ask a question and a candidate doesn't listen, we find they sometimes either tell us about something completely different
00:14:55
Speaker
or they just tell us everything they know, and there's a real skill in, I suppose it's active listening, but just honing in on what am I being asked, and just giving that one answer can- Apposing, yeah. Yeah, it is, and really, yeah, just giving that answer the same as if you've got a client in front of you, the client doesn't want to know everything, they've got a very specific question, and that professionalism on being able to answer what you're being asked.
00:15:25
Speaker
often trips candidates up. It's interesting what you see on just general emails quite a lot where you send something across and then maybe someone fires back a response quite quickly answering the first part or what they think that you meant by the first part of the email. But because they've not properly gone through the context, you then have to go back and go, no, actually, this is what I need from you, not what
00:15:52
Speaker
what you've responded with. And I think that's possibly the same thing and whether it's the pressure or just the eagerness to start an answer where people don't focus on what's the actual question. I think pausing is quite an important one to really reflect on what's been asked before you feel the need to sort of feel you have to start going through an answer. Yeah, it's almost that not panicking because or just being so keen to give
00:16:21
Speaker
an answer, it's gotta be, it's gotta be the right, it's gotta be the right one. And that's not, that's not to say that everything technically has to be 100% because let's face it, we're all human, but it's, you know, if somebody doesn't know the answer to something, it's actually being able to say, well, I don't know the answer, you know, it could be, well, it's not within, it's not within the scope of competence I'd ask, you know, I'd ask somebody else or it could be,
00:16:48
Speaker
I'm just gonna write it down and come back to it at the end of the interview. So it's almost, it's knowing how to answer difficult questions. And yeah, you're right, not just plowing in and then not, yeah, not reading the second part of the email. I suppose the scenario where perhaps it doesn't go so well, you don't get the desired outcome.
00:17:19
Speaker
What's the best thing you can do in terms of the reflection part on that, in terms of them preparing for the second attempt, if that makes sense?
Handling Referrals
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So referrals can be really disappointing, frustrating, stressful, upsetting, loads of different things. You'll always get a referral report from our ICS that tells you what happened, what went well, what didn't go so well. I know lots of candidates get them. There's a very immediate emotional reaction to it.
00:17:58
Speaker
So I almost think read the report, put it down, go and be angry, go and be upset, go and be whatever you need to be, and then come back to it with a fresh head. Ideally sit down with a counsellor, friend, counsellors in APC, counsellor, associate, friend, family, colleague, somebody, and go through it, go through it logically and work out what do you need to do to get through next time.
00:18:26
Speaker
The report gives you so much advice on, you know, it might be specific questions. It might be, you know, how you listened, how you answered questions. And that'll give you a really good set of objectives to work on for next time. Sometimes you might not agree with what's in the report. You might think that it doesn't really reflect what happened. I think in a way that sometimes we need to take things with a pinch of salt
00:18:54
Speaker
take from it what you need and then move forward and then your focus really needs to be on well. Is it that I just had a bad day in the office? Is it that I actually didn't, you know, I didn't have the right experience or I wasn't ready and then you can make a plan to go forwards, whether it's, I'm just going to go for it again, do exactly the same, you know, and hope that it's, you know, I have a much better day or is it, do I need to go and do some more work in a specific
00:19:24
Speaker
type of instruction, you know, do I need to go learn more about X, Y or Z? So I think taking the report and letting yourself feel whatever you need to feel, but then coming back to it with a plan and the candidates who succeeded, the ones who plan.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, um, I suppose you can liken it to a driving test. It's a bit more serious, but it's well from the driving serious too, I think, but you know, if you don't pass that first time, it's, it's, it's, uh, frustrating, absolutely. Um, but equally the benefit to not passing is actually you end up a better driver by the time you pass and then you're in a better position when you go out. And I suppose it's.
00:20:05
Speaker
trying to view it in that, despite the frustration, trying to view it in that light and then suddenly actually you're going to be better at the end of it. Um, once you're through, I think on that note, then obviously if you, if you fail a driving test or don't pass or whatever you want to say it, then quite clearly, you know, you're going to get some more lessons practice a bit more and then, you know, resubmit. So with the, um, you know, the different pathways are there, where can you go and get sort of
00:20:34
Speaker
you know more I don't know mock interview practice or where's best best then sort of once you've analyzed I suppose look at what steps to take in terms of preparing. So I'd say one of the one of the really good things you can do would be book a book a call with RICS Lionheart and they're really good they won't give you
00:20:57
Speaker
technical advice or advice, you know, specifically on what went wrong, but actually they can just give you some really good support on, you know, if it is nerves, confidence, getting over the referral, loads of those things. That's a really good thing to do. You definitely need to sit down with your counselor and employer, you know, and make a plan if it is things that you need to get some more experience of. I'd also say candidates often come in, send us, they send me their referral report, I have a look,
00:21:28
Speaker
and give them some advice on from an assessor's point of view from a completely independent third party, what I think might have gone wrong just to try and give them another perspective on it. So yeah, and even just discussing the experience in the report with somebody who wasn't there can often help to just highlight some of the things that they might need to go away and do.
00:21:56
Speaker
Awesome. Okay. And I think that's been really helpful.
Final Preparation Advice
00:21:59
Speaker
Is there any sort of, I suppose, final bits of advice you'd like to provide candidates around preparation? So I think a key stumbling block, I would say, is the planning towards submission and interview. So let's say if you know you're going to be submitting next February, get your calendar, get an Excel spreadsheet, and just plan out each week
00:22:22
Speaker
realistically with what you're going to do to have a submission completed in good time. Candidates often face trouble with the counsellor sign off. Everybody's busy. When we review submissions, it takes a long time. We need time to review it, to put it down, to come back to it, to reflect on it, to give good advice. And the same absolutely applies to your counsellor.
00:22:52
Speaker
So it could be getting your submission to your counsellor a month, a month and a half before the deadline to make sure that they're able to support you rather than we do see some candidates go, oh, the window, the submission window closes in three days. We signed the off and.
00:23:08
Speaker
Sadly, the answer is no. It's not time to do an all nighter with a lot of Red Bull. No, not at all. I know if it was just you submitting something, it'd be fine, but when it needs somebody else to put their own letters on the line to go, I genuinely believe that this person's ready to go forward and I've approved their application. It's just not gonna cut it.
00:23:38
Speaker
Fair, fair. Awesome.
Contact for Support
00:23:40
Speaker
Thank you for coming on and giving your insights on the different topics. If anyone wants to get in touch with you to learn more, whether it's finding more resource or speaking to you, how do they get in touch? Best way, go to Google and put in property elite or put Jen Lehman. Take you to our website, which is property-elite.co.uk. All my contact details are on there.
00:24:06
Speaker
You'll also find us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, and probably some other social media channels I've forgotten about as well, but just put property elite and we should come up the first time. And I'll be absolutely delighted to, if anybody's got any questions about roots, membership, referrals, support, et cetera, always happy to chat.
00:24:30
Speaker
Fantastic and good luck with the second book and hopefully we can discuss that on another episode when that comes out. Love to. Thank you very much for having me.