Whether you’re looking for a career mentor, or you’re interested in becoming a mentor in order to further your own career - here’s how taking part in a mentoring scheme, or establishing a more casual mentor-mentee relationship can benefit everyone involved.
Why have a career mentor?
It helps you stay focused
Having a career mentor can help you keep your career goals focused, and help you stick to them. We all suffer from distractions, but by expressing and sharing your goals with a mentor you are allowing yourself to be held accountable for achieving those goals.
Access to career opportunities
Your mentor can provide insider access to your industry, and you may find out about new opportunities before they reach the open market, as well as introducing you to important people or providing recommendations. You can take advantage of your mentor’s extended professional network, and hopefully add them to your own.
You can learn from their experience
Choosing a mentor with years of experience allows you to learn from both their mistakes and their triumphs. Having a mentor also makes it easier for you to take a step back and look at your career as a whole. They can help you plan your career more thoroughly, look at aspects of professional development you wouldn’t otherwise, and challenge you to look more closely at your job and career.
They’ll give you impartial advice
The fact that a mentor is independent and not involved directly in any particular situation allows them to provide you with an impartial viewpoint. This may be better than asking a family member, for instance, as your mentor may be able to more easily take a step back and look at the wider picture of your career.
Why BE a career mentor?
“A mentor is not only someone to provide you with support and advice, but it is also someone to share your successes with,“ explain Admore Recruitment. “This makes the whole experience rewarding for them as well as for you.” Being a mentor can help revitalise your own career, help you to stand out to employers, develop management qualities, reflect on your own career and to create a legacy by nurturing talent in your industry and passing on your skills and values. In summary, being a mentor benefits you because:
- It’s rewarding – you could change someone’s future for the better
- It can advance your own career
- It helps you re-evaluate your own career
- You may benefit from a fresh perspective of someone less immersed in your industry or profession
- You will improve your leadership skills
- Your mentee could return the favour in the future – you’re creating a future leader after all