In August 2024, the QBCC updated its licensing forms, and in doing so introduced a new way of presenting your experience in a Builders Licence application. With two pages to fill out for each site, you’re asked to talk about both the scope of the project, and your role on it across supervisory, administrative, and management services.
It’s an investment of your time to get this right on the first go, so here are 5 ways to help showcase your skills and experience.
Describe the site in good detail
Start with the nature of the project, both its scope and a general description. What type of building was it? If the project was a renovation then you might want to talk about the before and after, along with unique features about the site itself – was it reclaimed land or a brownfield site? Perhaps it was a steep slope that needed earthworks.
Remembering that whoever is reading your experience hasn’t been to the same site as you, referencing the building materials you used (steel frame, tilt panel, new or luxury construction products) can also help fill in the blanks, as well as show case your experience on specific construction methods.
Explain some challenges
Talking about the specific technical challenges you faced on the project can help to demonstrate that you were genuinely on site during construction, and that you were involved in solving these problems as they occurred.
Even if a site runs smoothly from start to finish, there’s always something that crops up – maybe it’s an older part of town and you had to deal with traffic on a narrow street, or the dewatering just never ended. If it was an older building, you might have had to solve structural or foundation repairs, and manage a heritage overlay.
Discuss your Responsibilities
Every construction project moves through stages, and as a site supervisor it would be normal to expect that you would have been hands on during those times, whether it’s checking on supplier deliveries, booking inspections, or changing the schedule around to manage a delayed painter.
Including information about how you were actively involved in these stages and what your responsibilities were is another way to reinforce your application with proof of your building knowledge.
A tip: If you’re stuck on the terms and definitions for those responsibilities, look at the Referee Report for cues on responsibilities you can write about.
Provide specific examples
If your experience draws from a lot of the same type of project, like new residential construction, then you probably had a roster of responsibilities that didn’t change much between each project. That’s both normal, and totally fine. Discussing what was different on each project helps each one have its own story and identity in your application, helping you stand out.
Give specific examples of things that you did, or oversaw, during the construction cycle. Did you host a meeting about site safety, or did you have to do a walk-through to check for moisture after a bad storm? Maybe there was a shortage on tiles that you had to solve for the customer, or they made a design change at the last minute.
Even the littlest things can be important, because the goal is to prove you were on site, and supervising or managing construction while you were there.
Always use your own words
Remember that while this might be one of the few times you ever look at the application paperwork, that’s not true for the staff at the QBCC – they see hundreds.
That means generic terms and broad statements can stand out, or be something they’ve already seen a dozen times from other applicants. You also want to be careful about giving the impression that your application doesn’t have specifics because you weren’t really there, and are filling in the blanks in broad terms to hide it.
While there are useful support tools out there to help you generate the words and content for the experience section, it’s no substitute for your own voice and your own way of describing things. Your own words really count and will help highlight that standard of your application against the others.
In other words
The take home here is that the more information you can include in your experience write up, the better your prospects at being able to show the QBCC that you have genuine, on-site experience in supervising and managing a construction site.
Of course there’s a lot more to it than this – not only do you need to make sure the jobs themselves are relevant to the licence you want to apply for, there’s Referees to think about too.
We always say that a QBCC Builder Licence application is made of many parts. It takes time to stitch all of that together, so use it wisely and start early.
Check out our other guides:
How Long Does It Take To Get A QBCC Builders Licence?
Get help with your QBCC Licence Application at Construction Licensing
QBCC Site Supervisor Licensing – Your First Steps To A Builders Licence
