2010 in review

Well it’s been a year since I’ve been blogging now and wordpress sent me some stats about what’s been happening with my blog that I thought I’d share with you all.

I have to say in the early days it was easy to think of lots of things to say, then I hit a tough spot in the middle of the year and found it difficult. Thereafter things have just flowed and I’ve kept it topical and current to things around me and our business. I hope you have all enjoyed it.

So the stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how my blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2010. That’s about 9 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 41 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 58 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 81mb. That’s about a picture per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 25th with 180 views. The most popular post that day was Staying upbeat on this, the most depressing day of the year….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were gf-partnership.co.uk, companyweb, twitter.com, linkedin.com, and facebook.com.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Staying upbeat on this, the most depressing day of the year… January 2010

2

About December 2009

3

APC Tips and Techniques September 2010

4

What Makes a Good CV? 15 Tips from the GFP Team November 2010

5

The Impossible… September 2010

APC Tips and Techniques

For those of you about to begin the preparation for your APC interviews in the QS world, I thought I would share a few tips and techniques to help you get through it.

So first of all, don’t think of it as an ordeal – it’s a chance for you to shine and demonstrate to a fellow group of professionals how knowledgeable you are. Be confident; after all, it’s you that everyone is going to be talking about!

• Make sure you have read, re-read and understood your submission.

• If there was any paperwork missing or that’s needed updating since your submission, make sure you have it with you and hand it out at the beginning of the interview.

• Make sure in your record of experience there isn’t anything included that you really don’t have knowledge or experience of. Don’t simply tick off the competency levels and say you have done something. Chances are you will get asked about it and, if you can’t answer, or try and bluff your way out of it, it will be on the list of issues making you a referral.

• Always try and leave hooks in your submission that will leave an Assessor wanting to ask you more about what you’ve done. Make it a bit intriguing for them. That way you can demonstrate your knowledge to them!

• Practice your 10 minute presentation over and over again. Use a mirror to talk to, use your colleagues or, if you can afford it, attend a course.

• During your presentation, speak slowly and clearly and don’t try and cram in everything from your critical analysis, as it will be far too much. Keep it simple and straightforward to understand. Just pick one aspect but describe it in good detail.

• Don’t take electronic aids, laptops or anything like that: The rooms are so very small and technology just doesn’t add to this type of presentation. Stick with paper charts and graphical aids.

• Remember this is an assessment of you, your skills and experience, so the assessors are trained to ask you about what you have done.

• If you are asked a question that you don’t know the answer to then say you don’t know, but show initiative by giving an answer about how you would find things out to give the answer. You can’t know everything there is to know about Quantity Surveying, and the Assessors are aware of that.

• Equally, if you are asked a question that you do know the answer to, then don’t rush and answer straight away. Take your time and lead the panel through your  answer (it uses up valuable time that could mean you don’t get asked that awkward question you don’t know the answer to!)

• The last part of the interview will be the chairman asking you questions about the RICS, its code of conduct and ethics. Be aware that if you get any of these types of questions wrong (which will be largely all theoretical) then chances are you will get referred. So don’t treat this part of your learning lightly.

• If an answer to something comes to you that you hadn’t been able to answer fully at the time during the interview, go back to it at the end, the chairman will give you that opportunity.

Prepare, prepare, prepare is the key to success. As a very good friend of mine always quoted to me: To fail to prepare, is to prepare to fail.

Useful Links:

APC home page on the RICS website

APC requirements and competencies guide

Quantity Surveying and Construction Pathway Guide

APC mock interviews

Final Assessment DVD – An in-depth look at the RICS Final Assessment

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Derek Mynott is Managing Director at G F Partnership and has over 30 years experience in the construction industry. In addition to this, he has been supervising and counselling Quantity Surveyors through their RICS APC since 1999.

Does your measurement come up to size?

Are you happy with your measurement?

I met a good friend of mine recently Jon Lever who is very actively involved with the RICS APC process and runs a very efficient business helping guys gain their MRICS status.

Now we were talking recently after he held one of his RICS surgeries at our offices about the lack of measurment being taught in the industry; and we both think that more could be done about this.

So instead of sitting around and doing nothing about it we came up with the idea that we should do something, the thing is what? Our idea is that we would like to help people who want to know more about measurement and how to do things (dare I say) properly. You may have little time, only want to learn about one particular aspect, already be qualified and want to brush up on something, or just generally interested in improving your skills.

We therefore plan to produce a series of cost effective ways that can take you through all aspects of measurement. The way in which we do that will be dictated by you.

If that’s something you think you’d be interested in (or just want to send me a comment) please contact me, as I’d be interested to hear from you. Either post a reply to this, send me an email derek.mynott@gf-partnership.co.uk , tweet me on @gfpartnership, contact me via facebook, or message me on LinkedIn.

Or you could just call ….

Better still complete this on line survey Jon and I are running and we can tailor our idea to suit your specific needs.