How to Fill Out and Submit the PEO Experience Record Form

The PEO experience record form is the online Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) document you complete at competencyassessment.ca to prove you have enough engineering experience for a P.Eng. licence in Ontario. You enter your employment history, write one work example for each of 34 competencies, rate yourself on a 0-to-5 scale, and assign validators who confirm the work. PEO requires at least 48 months of engineering experience before you submit, and every example needs a validator who saw the work firsthand.¹

What to Have Ready Before You Log In

The portal saves your progress, but the writing goes much faster when your materials are organized in advance. Pull the following together first:

Documentation of at least 48 months of post-graduation engineering experience. The employment summary is how PEO confirms you meet this threshold.¹
Employment details for each role: company name, company address, start date, end date (or a note that the role is current), job responsibilities, and whether the work was completed before graduation.²
At least one validator per work period. For experience gained in Canada, the validator must be a P.Eng. registered with a Canadian engineering regulator during the period being validated. For experience outside Canada, the validator should be a senior engineering practitioner licensed in that jurisdiction.³
Validator contact information. A business or professional email is preferred. If you provide a personal email, the portal will ask you to explain why.⁴
A copy of the CBA Applicant Guide open beside you. Appendix A lists all 34 competencies and their minimum rating requirements.¹

Canadian experience is not required. PEO accepts international engineering work as long as the validator requirements for that jurisdiction are met.⁵

How the Form Is Structured

You are filling out one form covering 34 competencies grouped into 7 categories. Every competency needs a written example and a self-rating. Every category has its own minimum average score.¹

Technical Competence — 10 competencies. Category average minimum: 3.
Communication — 3 competencies. Category average minimum: 3.
Project and Financial Management — 5 competencies. Category average minimum: 2.
Team Effectiveness — 2 competencies. Category average minimum: 3.
Professional Accountability — 6 competencies. Category average minimum: 3.
Social, Economic, Environmental and Sustainability — 5 competencies. Category average minimum: 2.
Personal Continuing Professional Development — 3 competencies. Category average minimum: 3.

The 0-to-5 Rating Scale

For each competency you assign yourself a score from 0 to 5, and your validator independently rates you on the same scale.¹

0 — Academic education, no practical application yet.
1 — Supervised experience, performed under direct guidance.
2 — Beginning, performed with limited oversight.
3 — Mastery, handled independently and competently.
4 — Expertise, advanced level, able to guide others.
5 — Leadership, setting direction and standards.

Most individual competencies require a minimum rating of 1, but several demand more. Within Technical Competence, competencies 1.1 (applying engineering knowledge), 1.6 (managing risk), and 1.9 (professional standards compliance) each require a minimum of 3. Within Communication, competency 2.3 also requires a minimum of 3.¹

Beyond the per-competency minimums, PEO calculates the mean of all ratings within each category. If your category average falls below the required threshold, the whole category fails even when every individual competency meets its minimum. One strong competency cannot rescue several weak ones in the same category.

Filling Out the Employment Summary

The employment summary is the first section of the form. It is not where you write your competency examples. It is a chronological record of your work history that PEO uses to confirm you meet the 48-month experience requirement.²

For each position, enter the company name and address, start and end dates (or mark the role as current), and a description of your job responsibilities. Indicate whether the employment was completed before graduation, since PEO generally counts post-graduation experience toward the 48 months. A few sentences describing the type of engineering work and your level of responsibility is enough. The detailed writing happens in the work examples.

Writing the 34 Work Examples

This is the core of the form and where most of your time will go. For each of the 34 competencies, you write one work example in a three-part structure:⁶

Situation (max 300 characters). The engineering problem or challenge you faced: the project, the constraints, what needed to be solved.
Action Taken (max 1,650 characters). The specific steps you took. This is where you show engineering judgment, technical knowledge, and decision-making.
Outcome (max 300 characters). The result of your actions: what was built, resolved, improved, or delivered.

Those are character limits, not word limits. At roughly five characters per word, the Situation and Outcome fields hold about 60 words each, and the Action field about 330 words. That is tight. Cut filler and get specific fast.⁶

Write in the First Person

PEO requires you to use the word “I” throughout your examples so assessors can separate your personal contributions from the team’s collective work.⁶ “I analyzed the load data and selected the beam sizes” tells the assessor something. “The structural design was completed to meet the client’s requirements” tells them nothing about what you did.

Reusing a Project Across Competencies

A single project can supply evidence for several competencies. A complex design might demonstrate technical analysis, client communication, and budget management all at once. When you reuse a project, keep each description focused on the specific competency it supports. The Situation can be identical, but the Action and Outcome must emphasize different skills and decisions each time.¹

Mistakes That Get Applications Rejected

Most rejections come down to one thing: the assessor could not see enough evidence of the competency in what you wrote. Four patterns account for most of them.

Choosing the wrong example. The work may be impressive, but if it does not address what the competency is actually testing, the assessor cannot score it. Read the competency description and its performance indicators in the CBA Guide, then match your example to the indicators rather than to what sounds most impressive.
Writing a job description instead of a work example. Listing responsibilities or describing what your team delivered is not the same as showing how you applied engineering judgment. Assessors need your thinking: what you analyzed, what alternatives you considered, why you chose one approach.
Substituting training for experience. Courses, standards you have read, and certifications are supporting credentials. They do not replace project-based examples. An Action section that reads like a resume of qualifications will not score well.
Writing at too high a level. “I managed the project” gives the assessor no way to rate you above a 1. Specificity is everything inside those 1,650 characters.

Choosing and Managing Your Validators

Validators confirm that your work examples are accurate. Ideally, a validator had direct, first-hand knowledge of your work, provided professional supervision during the period being validated, and took technical responsibility for what you produced.³

You need at least one validator, but you can assign different validators to different competencies if your experience spans multiple employers or supervisors. Validators do not have to be your supervisor — colleagues or clients with direct personal and professional knowledge of the work also qualify.⁴

Once you submit the form, the portal sends each validator a secure email link. The validator logs in, reviews the examples you assigned to them, and rates your proficiency on the same 0-to-5 scale you used. PEO may also contact validators directly as part of an audit.⁴

If a validator is unresponsive or you need to change one, you can do so before they finish. Click the decline button next to the validator’s name, then re-add the same person with an updated email or assign those competencies to a different validator. You will need to resend the validation email after any change.³

Validation is not an assessment of your experience. It confirms only that you actually performed the work you described. The real assessment comes from PEO’s own review.³

Submitting the Form and What Happens Next

Once your employment summary, all 34 work examples, and your self-assessment ratings are complete, and once your validators have submitted their feedback, the application moves to PEO for formal review. The P.Eng. application fee is $360 plus $46.80 HST.⁷

PEO assessors compare your written examples and self-ratings against the 34 competency definitions and the validator feedback. They calculate the mean rating for each category to determine whether you meet the category thresholds. Review can take several months depending on application volume and how complex your experience is.

Possible outcomes include full approval, a request for additional information or revised examples, or a determination that certain competencies were not adequately demonstrated. When specific competencies are flagged, you will usually have a chance to provide supplementary examples or clarification before a final decision.

If You Only Need to Practise on One Project

The experience record form is for full P.Eng. licensure. If you are a non-Canadian engineer who only needs to practise in Ontario for a specific project, PEO also offers a temporary licence, issued on a project and discipline basis for up to twelve months, which does not use the CBA form in the same way.⁸

1
Professional Engineers Ontario. Navigating Competency-Based Assessment Applicant Guide
2
Professional Engineers Ontario. Competency-Based Assessment Experience Records Form
3
Professional Engineers Ontario. CBA (Experience) FAQ
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Competency Assessment. Competency Assessment – Validation Requirements
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Professional Engineers Ontario. Application Requirements
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Professional Engineers Ontario. Competency-Based Assessment P.Eng. Application Form
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Professional Engineers Ontario. Become a Professional Engineer
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Professional Engineers Ontario. Temporary Licence