In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
A resit requires a new application and sponsor statements, with a new report if the previous one caused the difficulty. The next reviewers will not know about your earlier attempt.
The clean slate cuts both ways
Your new reviewers start from nothing. Nothing from last time counts against you, but nothing counts for you either, and the areas you were strong in have to be evidenced again from scratch.
That is worth internalising, because the instinct after an unsuccessful review is to fix only the criticised part. If the comments said your commercial evidence was thin, it is tempting to bolt on a commercial section and resubmit the rest unchanged. Sometimes that is right. Often the report has drifted since it was written, or the weak area was a symptom of a structure that made everything hard to see.
How to approach a re-sit
- 01
Work out what kind of failure it was
Missing experience, invisible experience, or undefended experience. They need completely different responses, and the reviewers' comments usually say which: read them with that question in mind.
- 02
If it was missing experience, do not rush back
Getting a real commercial or leadership responsibility takes six to eighteen months. Reapplying at the next session with the same experience and better wording is the most common way to fail twice.
- 03
If it was invisible experience, rebuild the report
Do not edit. Start from the list of decisions and write it again: the structure was probably the problem, and edits leave the structure in place.
- 04
If it was the day itself, practise out loud
Mock reviews with different people, until answering is comfortable. Reading and thinking about answers does not transfer.
- 05
Ask your sponsors to be harder on you
Sponsors are often generous with a first draft. Ask directly: which attribute would you struggle to defend on my behalf? New statements are required in any case.
- 06
Have somebody new read it
Someone who did not read the first version and has no investment in it. They will see what everyone else has stopped noticing.
Re-sit checklist
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.