APC Series: Competencies and career planning

Jen Lemen outlines the APC competency selection process, and what it means for your future prospects. Irrespective of which APC route you are on – structured training, straight to assessment, preliminary review, specialist or senior professional – you will still need to select a sector-specific pathway and competencies. There are 22 sector pathways to choose from. Within land & property, choices include commercial real estate, corporate real estate, land & resources, planning & development, property finance & investment, residential and valuation. You can download the pathway guide for each from the RICS website. Some of the pathways cross over, such as planning & development and land & resources, and commercial real estate or residential and valuation. Each pathway guide explains what the specific pathway covers in terms of job role, responsibilities and areas of practice, together with any chartered alternative designation you can use on qualifying as MRICS (eg chartered commercial property surveyor for the commercial real estate pathway). Each pathway guide also confirms the competencies that you must cover. All pathways have the same 11 mandatory competencies (see below). The mandatory competencies Level 1 Accounting principles and procedures Business planning Conflict avoidance, management and dispute resolution procedures Data management Diversity, inclusion and teamworking Inclusive environments Sustainability Level 2 Client care Communication and negotiation Health and safety Level 3 Ethics, rules of conduct and professionalism An ongoing process Level 1 requires knowledge only, whereas level 2 requires you to state what you have done (using practical examples) and level 3 requires you to state how you have advised clients (again using practical examples). Each pathway then defines the technical competencies required. These are split into core (ie, you must show evidence of meeting these) and optional (ie, you have a choice over these competencies). For the commercial real estate pathway, the core technical competencies are level 3 inspection and level 2 measurement and valuation (this needs to be taken to level 3, however, if you want to register on the Valuer Registration Scheme after qualifying). The pathway guide further refines the number and level of technical competency choices that you must make. While you do need to select your pathway when you enrol on the APC, it may be difficult to confirm your technical competency choices at this point in time. Some may be clear-cut – for example, if you are an agency surveyor then leasing & letting and purchase & sale may be obvious choices, but others may not. You will need to make an initial selection of your competencies to start logging your structured training diary days, or to begin to build up a record of your experience in order to write up your summary of experience and case study later on. However, your competency choice may evolve over time and you may need to change competencies if your role takes a new direction, you pick up new responsibilities or instruction, or you change jobs altogether. This is absolutely fine, and you simply need to amend your competency choice on the online RICS APC platform. If you change jobs, you may even need to change pathways, eg if you go from an agency role into a valuation role and the valuation pathway becomes more relevant to your ongoing work. If you are on a graduate scheme rotating through departments, then your competency choice may be clear from the outset. You may decide to select your level 3 competencies based on the departments you spend the most time in, for example. Equally, if you are a non-cognate graduate working in only one department, some competency choices may be easy to make, but the final few optional competencies may be more difficult. In this case, do you need to look at assisting with work in another department to pick up additional experience, or do you need to really interrogate the pathway guide to understand which competencies are relevant to your role? If you are working client-side, then your experience could be fairly narrow and you may struggle to evidence specific competencies. A common challenge is valuation – some candidates decide to go on secondment with another firm (perhaps a firm that provides valuation work to your client) for a few weeks to start to evidence level 2 in this competency. You may also be providing valuation advice internally – for example, pricing assets for agency purposes or providing internal valuation advice to help your board or shareholders make decisions.  Adapt and thrive Your competency choice will evolve throughout your APC journey – it won’t be set in stone and you shouldn’t worry if you need to change it as time moves on. The key is ensuring that your competency choice is relevant to your role and you are practically able to evidence your achievements against the pathway requirements. If you can’t, then you need to consider whether you have selected the right competencies, or, if it is a core technical competency, then you need to look at how you can plug the skills and experience gap. The quick quiz 1. Which is one of the only European countries to have set negative interest rates?a. Austriab. Switzerlandc. France 2. What does FX stand for?a. French exchangeb. Foreign exchangec. Free exchange 3. In a residential section 21 notice, how much notice must you give (as a minimum) to your tenants to vacate the property?a. 1 monthb. 2 monthsc. 6 months Answers: 1: b; 2: b; 3: b Jen Lemen BSc (Hons) FRICS is a co-founder and partner of Property Elite Photo © Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash