Unlocking your Career Journey: The Power of Mentoring and Connection

Utkarsha Joshi reflects on the value of mentoring at every stage of your career

EARLY- and mid-career life as a chemical engineer can feel like a whirlwind; new responsibilities, new teams and sometimes new industries altogether. In the middle of all this, you may feel like talking to someone who can help you make sense of what is going on and how it might shape your future. Someone you can share your uncertainties with; someone in your corner who has walked the path before. It can be transformative. That’s exactly why IChemE’s mentoring programme exists, and why now is the perfect time to get involved.

I’ve been both a mentee and a mentor during my career, and I can say with confidence: mentoring works. Often in ways you don’t expect. Sometimes it’s about career strategy, sometimes it’s about technical direction and occasionally it’s simply about having someone outside your day-to-day environment who understands what it means to be a chemical engineer in industry.

Right at the beginning, I wanted to transfer from student to graduate membership grade (as it was called then). I had started my first job and needed a referee. It so happened that one of our directors was chair of the Membership Committee. He invited me for a chat and asked me about my aspirations. I told him that I was working towards gaining CEng status. He advised me that my job content, at that time, did not have sufficient chemical engineering content. This set me thinking and I decided to pursue a master’s, which eventually led me to getting a job as a chemical engineer and CEng.

Why mentoring matters (especially in industry)

Members working in industry are under a variety of pressures; operational challenges, commercial expectations and navigating complex stakeholder environments. While organisations may offer internal support, an external mentor can also provide something invaluable: different perspective. Or you may be in a small organisation that doesn’t have any chemical engineers.

A mentor can help you explore options freely, sense-check decisions and build confidence. It’s this combination of support and challenge that helps people unlock meaningful professional growth. A mentor isn’t there to prod you into action or set your goals. They are there to help guide you along the path you’ve set. They can also help you spot when your current path may not lead to your goals.

IChemE's mentor match platform: simple, supportive, and flexible

IChemE already offers an easy-to-use mentoring platform –Mentor Match – open to anyone looking for guidance or keen to share their expertise. One of the strongest features of the IChemE mentoring programme is its flexibility. There’s no prescribed format or rigid structure. You and your mentor or mentee design the relationship to suit your goals. Want to meet monthly? Great. Prefer short conversations every few weeks? That works too. Need a mix of professional guidance and informal reflection? You can tailor that.

The platform itself makes the process easy. The matching tool helps you find a mentor whose experience aligns with your aspirations, whether that’s process safety, project engineering, management, or making a sector switch. It takes only a few minutes to set up your profile and from there the platform guides you through the process, from initial contact to ongoing check-ins.

It’s designed to remove the logistical friction so that you can focus on the part that really matters: the conversations.

My experience

I’ve worked with mentees exploring chartership, stepping into leadership roles and even deciding whether to move sectors or countries. I see graduate engineers juggling the work commitments and training and experience requirements needed to achieve chartership. My approach has been to coax such colleagues to bring their CEng aspirations back on track. Often, the mentor’s role isn’t to give answers but to provide encouragement, space to reflect, to bounce ideas off and to breathe! It is satisfying to see the difference that clarity and confidence can make.

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Find out more: www.icheme.org/education-career/mentoring/