Work experience - general advice for all options

These notes have been prepared to provide general assistance to candidates on fulfilling work experience requirements for New Zealand Certificate and Technicians Certificate qualifications. In particular, it offers advice relating to the Work Experience Record Book. Information on work experience specific to a particular qualification is given in Work Experience Guidelines for that qualification.

1. Your employer needs to be aware that, in order to fulfil your work experience requirements, you will need to have a range of experience as given in the Work Experience Guidelines specific to your New Zealand Certificate.
   
   You should discuss this matter with your employer as soon as possible, and ensure that your employer is aware of the diversity of experience that you need to have. It is recommended that your employer be given a copy of these notes and the Work Experience Guidelines.
   
   
2. During the time of your work experience, you need to be working under an appropriate level of supervision by a suitably qualified person who is able to provide advice and guidance on the job, and who is able to certify that your Work Experience Record Book is an accurate record of your work activities. You must make sure that your employer knows that you require your work to be certified.
   
   If you are self employed for any part of the time in which you gain work experience, you must establish a link with a suitable person for appropriate supervision during this time. For example, if you are a self employed draughtsperson undertaking a New Zealand Certificate in Architectural Draughting, you could link with a suitably qualified and experienced architect. Advice on this matter may be obtained from NZQA.
   
   
3. Each New Zealand Certificate or Technicians Certificate requires a minimum of three years relevant work experience. For work experience to be credited, you must be working a minimum of 30 hours a week.
   
   
4. Teaching experience is not accepted as suitable work experience.
   
   
5. You should have at least one year of suitable work experience with a New Zealand employer. Work experience undertaken overseas with a New Zealand employer is also acceptable. If you do not have at least one year of work experience with a New Zealand employer, you should contact NZQA.
   
   
6. Your Work Experience Record Book needs to show the progression and development of your skills, abilities and responsibilities over the period of your employment. You must be able to show through the activities which you list that your skills and abilities have developed and that your responsibilities have increased over the period of your work experience.
   
   For example, at the start of your work experience time, you may have been assisting with the development of a project and contributing suggestions; over time, your involvement may increase so that you assume responsibility for developing some parts of the project; towards the end of the period, you may have assumed responsibility for implementation of major parts of the project and be contributing to the tendering and financial aspects.
   
   
7. You need to have been engaged in a broad range of activities. The specific guidelines may have categories of activities and specify the extent to which you need to have experience over these categories (in some cases, you must have experience in all categories; in other cases, you must have experience in only some of the categories.)
   
   
   The guidelines for each qualification give specific activities from which suitable work experience may be gained; you need to have experience in a range (but not necessarily all) of the listed activities. Other activities may also be suitable for work experience - those listed are typical activities for that industry but it is not intended that the list is exhaustive.
   
   It is also helpful if you reference your activities to any categories given in the work experience guidelines specific to each qualification.
   
   
8. You need to list the actual activities in which you have been engaged. For example, "Designed and installed a new tolerance measuring system for a precision cutting machine" is more helpful than "Worked on a new system for a machine". A central position must be found between describing tasks in very broad general terms (which does not help to show what you have actually done) and giving fine details (which may overwhelm the evaluator).
   
   
9. You need to show your personal involvement in any activity you list, especially if you worked as part of a team. For example, "Draughted plans for the installation of mechanical services in the kitchen as part of the overall redevelopment of a 50 room hotel" is more helpful than "Assisted with plans for a hotel".
   
   
10. You should show the periods (day, month and year) over which you have been engaged in the activities you list - see the sample pages. It is not necessary to record activities weekly or daily. However, you may find it helpful to keep a personal weekly log, and to write up your work experience record from this every month (or at some other convenient intervals), or at significant stages in the development of a project or series of related activities.
    
    Typically, one or two pages of the Work Experience Record Book should be sufficient to record your work experience for each 12 month period.
    
    
11. You must have your employer or supervisor complete the section at the bottom of each Work Experience Record Sheet. The signature of your employer or supervisor which is required at the bottom of each page must be original.
    
    
12. You may find that you need to include additional pages in your Work Experience Record Book. Such pages must contain your name, must be dated, and must contain the name and an original (not a photocopied) signature of your supervisor or employer. This also applies to pages which you glue over pages already in the Record Book.
    
    
13. You may find it useful to ask someone who does not work in the same type of work as you to read your Work Experience Record Book from time to time (say when you have completed a page), and then have them explain to you what they understand you have been engaged in. If there are any parts which are not clear to this person, you should further elaborate them before submitting the book for approval.
    
    
14. You may wish to photocopy the book before you submit it, and retain the photocopy for your records (the original will be returned to you when it has been processed).
    
    
15. Should your book not be approved on submission, it will be returned to you. You should remedy any deficiencies and re-submit the whole book with the additional records.

View sample material

Page updated: 23 February 2005