CIHT Mentoring

CIHT Mentoring is available to members who are currently working towards Engineering Council registration and would like to work with a mentor who has good knowledge of the relevant standard and the process involved in achieving it.

CIHT mentors provide advice, guidance and encouragement to their mentee on their journey to becoming professionally qualified. As a mentor, you will help the mentee identify the relevant knowledge and experience required to meet the required competence standard and advise on how this might be demonstrated in their submission and at interview.

Am I qualified to be a CIHT Mentor?

You can become a CIHT Mentor if you are already a Member or a Fellow of the Institution and are registered with the Engineering Council at CEng, IEng or EngTech levels. You are also expected to have worked for at least 3 years at the senior level. Your experience should cover and match the standards as outlined in the UK-SPEC document.

Benefits of becoming a Mentor

Mentoring offers an opportunity for you to:

• Develop your leadership and management skills
• Share your knowledge and experience with others
• Expand your network
• Gain satisfaction from contributing to the success of others
• Continue with your own professional development e.g. CPD
• Give something back to the engineering community.

What is involved?

As a CIHT mentor you will work with your mentees and guide them through the Technical Report and/or Professional Review process. This will include:

• Guiding your mentees on selecting the right approach to compiling and producing the Portfolio of Evidence (PoE) and/or Technical Report (TR)
• Helping your mentees to critically asses their skills and knowledge
• Discussing development with your mentees and
• Critically assessing different parts of the mentee’s PoE or TR and challenging any ambiguities or omissions in their submission
• Ensuring that your mentee(s) is ready to sit the Professional Review or Technical Report interview
• Giving general advice on presentation skills, professional development, approach to CPD.

Characteristics of an effective Mentor

To be an effective mentor, you should:

Interpersonal skills

• Possess excellent listening skills
• Be able to structure your feedback in the most impactful and coherent way
• Use a variety of questioning styles so that your mentees can decide on best approaches to their professional development
• Be able to build strong relationships
• Be able to effectively challenge and encourage critical thinking and different approaches to problem solving
• Be tactful in your responses yet provide honest feedback.
• Share your, knowledge, skills and experiences, yet be ready to accept that what has worked for you may not necessarily work for your mentee
• Be able to create open and trusting environment

Technical knowledge and experience

• Must be an Engineering Council Registrant
• Have extensive Highways and Transportation experience r with at least 3 years of leading and developing teams, and delivering highways and transportation engineering projects
• Have good knowledge of the UK-SPEC standards and their application in practice
• Understand the different routes to professional registrations

Things to consider

Next steps

Help and Support

For further information and advice, please contact the CIHT Education Team via e-mail –education@ciht.org.uk