Does IET Mentoring Cover Broader Technical and Career Development?

Hi Gareth,

No, unfortunately (unless someone from the IET mentoring service says otherwise!) IET mentoring is strictly only focused on professional registration.

This is why I resigned as an IET mentor! The explanation we were given a few years ago (at the point where I resigned) was that it would conflict with the IET's charitable status if we gave wider advice. Very frustrating.

It's a really good question to ask, some companies have in house mentoring but many don't. And of course in house mentoring can only focus on development within that company, whereas particularly (but not only) for people early career it would be really useful to have completely impartial mentoring advice available. Of all the professions I feel it's particularly important in engineering, as it's probably the profession with the least structured career entry of any - you finish university / college and then it's just up to you to make your own way. 

It'll be clear from this that I wish the IET did offer such a service...there's a huge need for it, and to me it feels like it should be a core part of our remit.

Good luck, keep asking around, and also keep taking advice from any engineers you meet who are happy to give it. Don't believe all of it though, or more accurately don't feel it all necessarily applies to you, there are many many paths through the world of engineering and the challenge is to find the one that suits you. Some people want loads of money, some want deep technical challenges, some want to be important (or be seen to be important!), some want lots of travel, some want a steady job where they can clock off at 5:00 each night and forget about the day job. I'd definitely suggest that every time you meet an engineer doing a job where you think "that's where I'd like to be in X years time" try to find out from them how they got there. 

Cheers,

Andy