APC: the interview
Answer the question
22 June 2010
The APC interview mimics real life and dealing with a client, says Mark Tatlow, so you should listen, consider your response and provide a reasoned answer
The APC seeks to test not only a candidate's professional knowledge, but also how they can respond to client questions and justify the advice they give. After all, in the real world surveyors are constantly faced with the need to explain their findings once they have applied their technical knowledge to a problem. In the APC, these elements are assessed through questions exploring the candidate's understanding of their critical analysis project, their wider experience and the RICS rules of conduct.
Listen up
Many candidates commit the cardinal sin of not listening to a question. It is easy to hear a particular word or phrase, e.g. 'dry rot', and assume the panel wants to know everything about mycelia or the moisture content of timber. Unless the candidate takes a moment to understand the question, they may miss that this had a different slant, e.g. "To avoid the possibility of dry rot in the future, how would you resolve damp affecting a suspended timber floor?" A good policy, which is likely to need practice in advance, is to pause for a moment before answering and use the time to consider the question and an appropriate answer.
Mind the gap
APC candidates also find it tempting to add bits to their initial answer. This is particularly true where the panel pauses before delivering their next question. Candidates should beware of these silences and the temptation to tack on another element to their answer. If the question has been properly listened to, it is rare for these extra bits to add anything, more often than not it contradicts or confuses the original answer. Learning to say only what is required and to stop at this point is an important lesson for APC candidates and seasoned professionals alike.
Don't ramble
Assessors should not generally ask questions that need long winded or multi-faceted answers. Therefore, if a candidate finds that their proposed answer is wordy, they have probably not understood the question. Pausing to understand the question should enable a candidate to also condense their answer. This mimics real life; rarely would our clients want a rambling or encyclopaedic answer to a direct question.
What and why?
Many candidates commit the cardinal sin of not listening to the question
The questions that are aimed at assessing Level 1 competency (demonstrating competency and understanding), will generally be quite direct. However, questions testing Level 3 competency (showing reasoned advice), are likely to be more complicated and may be applied to scenarios comparable to the candidate's experience. Candidates need to see such questions in the same manner that they would in real life - what would you do if presented with such a situation and why? This is the essence of a chartered surveyor; understanding not only what is required when faced with a problem, but why.
Queries
If a candidate does not understand a question, they can ask for it to be explained/expanded on; even better, they can rephrase the question back to the panel to test that their understanding is correct. In a real client meeting, I doubt many of us would speculate what the client's question was if we were uncertain. However, as with real life, if the question is genuinely quite simple, quizzing its meaning may merely illustrate that you do not know the answer.
I don't know!
Clearly not knowing the answer to a question is going to hamper a candidate's chances of success. However, the impact of this will be reduced if the candidate deals with it professionally. In a client situation, a surveyor would not guess at an answer; they would stop on the limits of their knowledge, explain how they would find out the unknown and promise to revert back. If the panel sees a question as simple, responding in this manner will not lead to a pass; but where a question is seen to be difficult and such an approach is not repeated several times in the interview, it is likely to increase the chances of a pass.
Above all else, candidates should treat the APC in the same manner that they would an interview with a client, i.e. they expect us to listen to their questions and provide professionally considered answers.
Mark Tatlow is a Senior Director with CB Richard Ellis