Phase 3 · Complete your IPD

Your mentor

Who can mentor you, what to expect of them, and what a mentor should and should not do.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors

On the individually managed route a personal mentor guides your training, reviews your progress against the Core Objectives, and signs your IPD final report forms.

What the guidance says about mentors

Institution of Structural Engineers

A mentor should preferably be a Chartered Member (Fellow or Member) of the Institution of Structural Engineers, or an individual of equivalent standing.
They will normally be an experienced engineer in your workplace, and will provide guidance, advice and training.
Where a mentor is not available within your organisation, you are recommended to contact your local Regional Group for advice on sourcing one.
You may have several mentors throughout your IPD. The level of experience of your mentors should be appropriate to the relevant Core Objectives.
Guidance for mentors, in the form of a mentor's handbook, is available from the website or from the Membership Department.
Your IPD final report forms should be signed by your personal mentor.

From IPD Guidance — Chartered Member, Institution of Structural Engineers.

Several mentors is normal, and often better

The guidance says you may have several, and that their experience should be appropriate to the relevant objectives. That is worth taking literally.

Nobody is equally strong across concept design, materials, sustainability, construction, management and the commercial and legal objective. A candidate who takes all ten to one person is likely to get thorough guidance on four and polite agreement on the rest.

If your principal mentor is a designer, find someone on the contracting side to look at your construction evidence. If your commercial evidence is thin, the person who runs your fee budgets is a better reader of that objective than your technical lead.

Do not confuse a mentor with a supporter

They are different roles and people mix them up constantly.

A mentor guides your development and signs your IPD final report forms.
A supporter is named at your initial application and confirms you are a fit and proper person to become a Member. A supporter does not confirm you are qualified.

One person may do both. They are still two jobs.

If there is nobody in your organisation

This is common and it is provided for. The guidance points you at your local Regional Group for advice on sourcing a mentor. Regional Group members are under no obligation, but this is the recognised route and it works.

If you genuinely cannot find one, the retrospectively collated route exists for exactly that situation.

What a good mentor does

Worth doing

Meets you on a regular, agreed rhythm rather than when you chase them.
Reviews progress against the Core Objectives, not just against the projects you happen to be on.
Tells you plainly which objectives are thin, and how long fixing them will take.
Helps you get the experience you are missing — a different project, a site secondment, a package with a budget on it.
Reads your draft final report forms and says where a reviewer will push.
Says when you are not ready, and what would change that.

Avoid

Writes your evidence for you. The forms must be your own account of your own work.
Signs forms they have not read.
Confirms an objective is achieved — only IStructE determines that, at the review.
Agrees with everything. A mentor who has never told you something was weak is not mentoring.

For candidates: choosing and using a mentor

My mentor is a Chartered Member or Fellow of IStructE, or of equivalent standing.
They have agreed to a regular meeting rhythm, and it is happening.
We review progress against the ten Core Objectives, by name.
I have asked which objectives they think are weakest, and written down the answer.
Where their experience does not cover an objective, I have found someone else who can advise on it.
They have read my draft IPD final report forms.
I understand they sign the forms but do not determine whether an objective is met.

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