Jason Pang discusses his journey on the AYP Mentor Scheme with his mentor John Wilson.

Having already worked in the offshore oil and gas industry for a number of years, I wasn't sure if the AYP was for me and how much I was really going to benefit from them.  I had previously considered joining around 2018 or 2019 but time passed and I ended up missing the opportunity!



Anyway, fast forward to October 2020, I was stuck in my hotel room in Norwich, on standby preparing to mobilise for a job offshore when I came across the AYP post on LinkedIn that applications were open for the 2020/21 mentor scheme.

I jumped at the opportunity and I watched the short videos and read all the mentor bio's.  I instantly knew that I wanted to select John Wilson as my preferred mentor.  Not only is John from an engineering background, but he is a very experienced and successful Managing Director.  He was also awarded the AYP mentor of the year back in 2019!

I was fortunate to have been paired up with John and we had our first catch up meeting at the end of November 2020.  We met in Starbucks over at the Village Hotel in the Prime Four Business Park (back when restrictions allowed!).  I found John to be very knowledgable, he was also very easy to talk to and was incredibly helpful.

The main points which we discussed and took away from the meeting were:

• Gaining professional engineering status
• Potentially looking to gain commercial/business development experience.
• Career progression within my current field

John has provided some brilliant suggestions for career progression and since our meeting, we have now put together a Personal Development Plan (PDP) with goals which I will be looking to achieve in the not so distant future,  I am currently project managing two major decommissioning projects with my current employer Lloyds Register, so plenty in the pipeline to keep me going, however, I am very much looking forward to starting my own journey with the AYP and seeing what the Mentor Scheme has to offer with the support of John!

I would highly recommend any professional to reach out and apply to the AYP Mentor Scheme, even if you have the slightest bit of doubt, it really is a fantastic opportunity which will provide a whole new perspective.

---