What is mentoring?

Mentoring is a relationship in which an individual supports someone by sharing their professional knowledge and experiences and uses key skills and personal attributes to enable them to achieve their goals.

The mentoring relationship is focused on enabling a mentee to:-

• Progress in their academic and professional life.
• Develop their skills, knowledge and capability.
• Facilitate their personal and professional development so that the mentee is able to fulfil their potential.

Mentoring isn’t primarily about giving advice, telling the mentee to ‘do it the way I did it’. It is much more about motivating and empowering the other person to identify their own issues and goals. Mentoring is not coaching, counselling or therapy. Mentors cannot and are not expected to have all the answers. To be effective, mentors need to encourage their mentee to come up with their own solutions and action plans.

Getting the most out of mentoring

Having a role model to support, advise and guide you, can help you aim high and achieve your full potential.

Why it is good to have a mentor

A mentor is a trusted person with experience who can:

• Help you develop your skills and knowledge.
• Share their own career story and introduce you to others to build your network.
• Guide you towards opportunities to start or move up in your career.
• Support you to set goals and take action.
• Help you to look at challenges in a new way.
• Signpost you to advice and further help if you need it.

Having a mentor is useful at any stage of your career.

Mentees are encouraged to:-

• Take responsibility for managing their own development.
• Set clear, realistic objectives.
• Be responsible for initiating conversations.
• Be open to feedback from mentors and receptive to new ideas.
• Show consideration for their mentor’s time.

The frequency and length of the mentoring partnership should be discussed and agreed at the outset.

Please alert the Careers team to any concerns or breakdown in the mentoring relationship.

Mentors are encouraged to:-

• Be realistic about how much time they can commit and the frequency of contact.
• Motivate and encourage the mentee to take responsibility for learning and career development activities.
• Help identify learning and networking.
• Provide constructive feedback and act as a sounding board for ideas.
• Challenge mentee to take a broad perspective.
• Use listening skills and facilitate an approach that helps the mentee identify their strengths and weaknesses.
• Maintain commitment to the mentoring partnership and discuss and agree to the frequency and length of the mentoring partnership.
• Alert the Careers Team to any concerns or breakdown in the mentoring partnership.

Elevate Mentors can help with a variety of different skills and challenges. For example:

Selecting a degree/university

• Course information
• Tips on personal statements
• Advice about handling Freshers’ Week/life at university
• Information about the university/city/nightlife

Furthering careers

• Writing / improving your CV
• Completing job applications
• Practising interview skills
• Understanding typical career progression

Settling into an industry

• Researching careers, discussing what a typical day may involve
• Applying for further study
• Visits to their workplace / finding out about working cultures in organisations

Sharing experience / personal development

• Confidence building
• Setting development goals
• Time management

Ideas for general questions to ask

• Can you explain the different career paths in your profession?
• Can you tell me how you got to your current position? Did you have any eureka moments along the way?
• Was there any advice you were given that either worked or didn’t work to get into this?
• Could you recommend any books/blogs/podcasts/thought leaders that would help me discover more about this role?