Anton Bradley, Principal Land Quality Scientist at Jacobs (UK) Limited, is one of our amazing mentors volunteering his time to support people in achieving their Chartered Scientist (CSci) Chartership. To coincide with Volunteers' Week 2023, we caught up with Anton to hear about his experience as a mentor through the IES.
Anton Bradley shares his experiences of mentoring through the IES mentoring platform.
“I signed up to mentor on the Institution of Environmental Sciences’ mentoring platform as I wanted to help others achieve CSci (chartership). Once chartered, I believe a lot of doors open in your career, you become more aware of skills you already have, and the experience fills you with confidence.
If I were to describe my experience as a mentor with the IES in three words, I would say rewarding, educational and inspiring. I recently mentored a geo-environmental consultant, who had a similar level of experience to myself, to achieve CSci. The mentoring relationship lasted six weeks, with fortnightly virtual meetings. Throughout the sessions I supported my mentee by discussing the CSci competencies, coaching them to identify appropriate examples, guiding them on how to structure their answers, and providing feedback on their draft application.
My mentee subsequently achieved CSci status following submission of their application. Not only this, but they subsequently received a promotion, a bonus, and opportunities to acquire further professional qualifications. For me, it was a real highlight of the experience to see my mentee's application develop and support them towards being awarded CSci status.
The mentoring experience has improved my skills in verbal communication, leadership and critically reviewing documents by others. These are skills that will hopefully contribute to a future team leader position.
The IES platform is a useful system to deliver mentoring, with a wealth learning resources, chat and video functions and record keeping areas. I am definitely planning on entering more mentoring relationships through the IES in the future and would say that any IES members looking to enhance their communication and leadership skills should definitely consider mentoring. The experience is rewarding and empowering.”
If you've been inspired by Anton's story to give mentoring a go yourself, then you can find out more and sign up by visiting our careers page. Access to our mentoring platform is one of the great benefits of an IES membership. If you're not already a member and are interested in finding out more, please see here for more further information.
