Final Employer Evaluation and Externship Reflection

What This Lesson Is About

You have completed your externship hours. Now you bring everything together: the employer's formal evaluation of your on-site performance, the complete daily log you kept throughout the placement, and a written reflection that ties your field experience to the credential exams you will sit in Course 11. This lesson walks you through each step so that nothing is missing when you hand in your portfolio.

The Final Employer Evaluation Meeting

Before your last worksite shift ends, schedule a sit-down meeting with your supervising locksmith. This is a professional conversation, not a casual chat. Bring the standardized program rubric form. Your supervisor will score you in five categories:

• Technical skill — Can you perform core locksmith and alarm tasks correctly and efficiently?
• Safety compliance — Did you follow lockout/tagout procedures, wear required PPE, and handle tools and hardware without creating hazards for yourself or others?
• Professionalism — Did you arrive on time, communicate clearly, and represent the company appropriately?
• Customer interaction — Did you greet customers respectfully, explain work in plain language, and protect their property and privacy?
• Tool care — Did you keep tools clean, organized, and in working order, and return them to their proper storage?

The rubric uses a 1–4 scale. A passing externship requires a score of 3 or better in every category. If your supervisor marks a 2 or lower in any area, listen carefully to the explanation. Ask one clarifying question for each low score: What specific behavior would move this to a 3? Write the answer down. This feedback is actionable data for your continued development. After the discussion, both you and your supervisor sign and date the form. You keep a copy; the original goes to your instructor.

Safety note: If during the evaluation meeting your supervisor raises any safety concern — for example, an instance where you bypassed a PPE requirement or failed to lock out a power supply before servicing an access-control panel — treat that as your highest-priority development item. Safety violations in the field can injure you, a coworker, or a customer, and they can cost you a license before you earn one.

Compiling the Portfolio

Your daily log is the raw material of the portfolio. Gather every log sheet and sort them by worksite date. Check for gaps: the passing standard requires a log entry for every day you were on site, with no missing dates. If you discover a gap, contact your instructor immediately — do not guess or reconstruct entries after the fact, as accuracy is a professional and ethical obligation.

Next, organize the log entries by credential domain. Use the official content outlines for the three credentials as your organizing framework:

• ALOA CRL sections — key cutting, lock installation and repair, master key systems, safe work, automotive, and related areas covered by the Certified Registered Locksmith exam content outline.
• ESA CAT sections — intrusion detection, access control, fire/life safety signaling, low-voltage wiring, and related areas covered by the Certified Alarm Technician exam content outline.
• State license categories — whatever categories your state licensing board defines for the locksmith and/or alarm license you will apply for.

For each domain, write one paragraph (five to eight sentences) that does three things: names a specific job or task you performed during the externship that addresses that domain, describes what you did step by step, and states what you learned or how your skill changed. Vague statements like "I learned a lot about locks" do not meet the standard. Specific statements like "I re-keyed a six-pin Schlage B60N deadbolt to match an existing master key system, which taught me how to calculate the master wafer positions" do.

The Portfolio Conference with Your Instructor

Submit the bound or digital portfolio to your instructor before your scheduled 20-minute conference. During the conference, be ready to discuss:

1. Two moments of difficulty — describe the situation, what went wrong or felt hard, and specifically how you worked through it.

2. One skill that still needs development — be honest. Identifying a genuine gap is a sign of professional maturity, not failure.

3. A concrete practice plan — what will you do between now and the credential exams to close that gap? Examples include practicing key cutting on a practice lock set, reviewing ESA content flashcards, or shadowing a licensed technician on alarm panel programming.

Your instructor will review that all three credential domains are addressed in the written reflection before awarding a passing grade for the lesson.

Why This Matters for Your Credentials

The ALOA CRL and ESA CAT exams test knowledge, but employers and licensing boards also look at demonstrated work history. The portfolio you build here becomes evidence you can show at a job interview or submit with a license application. Treat it as a professional document: proofread it, organize it neatly, and keep a copy for yourself permanently.

Staying on the Right Side of the Law

Do not include in your portfolio any customer names, addresses, key codes, alarm codes, or other identifying information without written permission. Locksmiths and alarm technicians handle sensitive security information, and protecting it is both an ethical duty and, in many states, a legal one. Redact or generalize any such details in your log before submitting.