ATC clearance for circling approach

Also, something else to help while circling is to over fly the runway if possible. It makes the approach a lot easier and sets you up to enter a downwind. This makes it easier to stay within the obstruction clearance area and makes the maneuver appear more normal. The worst is having to fly an approach into the obstruction clearance area and then maneuvering out to gain spacing. Depending on the airport and current operations, ATC won't allow you to over fly the airport, but will be directive. A second technique is to always circle to your side of the aircraft. It's a pain circling to the other side because all you see is ground and you have to rely on the guy in the other seat to talk you through position and spacing. Cool thing is, in the sim, you do what ever you like. Lastly, altitude hold with heading select is money. This allows you to keep your eyes outside more. Once you are in good position and ready to descend out of mins, go manual.

These tips will help you a lot in the sim. Back in my Air Force days, I flew more circles than I ever wanted. We had a requirement called an M10. This was called a proficiency sortie. You had to accomplish at least 1 per half in the sim and 1 per half in the aircraft. The M10 consisted of a minimum of 3 instrument approaches, 1 missed approach, 1 VFR traffic pattern and when available 1 holding or procedure turn, 1 circling approach and 1 partial flap landing. You had to accomplish these with an IP. As an IP/EP, I flew a lot of training sorties with guys needing their M10s. I would have 2 to 3 guys and cycled them through to get each an M10. As you can imagine, some guys needed more than the minimum. Through out the shenanigans, I had to squeeze in approaches for myself to piece together my own M10.     

Good luck