Career Mentors

Have you ever considered engaging a mentor to help you accelerate your career development? Why would you get stuck when there is someone out there able and willing to support you shorten your learning curve and get to the top sooner?

Ten (10) Factors to guide you in identifying and engaging a mentor

1. Who is a mentor?
A mentor is an experienced person who advises and helps somebody with less experience over a period of time.

2. What is the role of a mentor in career development?
A mentor is a very important professional resource; he/she helps you fill in the gaps (in terms of knowledge, skills and abilities) in a very practical manner. A mentor provides you with a pool of knowledge that you tap on to help you polish some particular key skills that you find pertinent to your career development.

3. How do you identify a mentor?

(a)Your colleagues at work - seek out for star performers and request them to be your mentors.

(b)Your social networks - look at your contacts and identify people with knowledge and skills and experience that would be useful in developing your career.

(c)Sports/social engagements - In the process of exchanging cards with your social contacts, be on the look out for the titles that closely resonate with the role profiles that you desire to target in the near future.

(d)Professional clubs - Be on the look out for the kind of people you would like to connect with.

(e)Media - We are always reading about people who have made it in their careers and businesses. Do not settle at a mental sigh of "I hope one day I shall be like them". Seek to start becoming like them now.

Based on these avenues (which are not exhaustive), build your own database of the prospective mentors. Be clear on what you want to learn from them, why them, why is it important to you, what are their contacts, when will you be contacting them etc.

4. How do you start off a mentor-ship relationship?
Remember you are the one in need and you have to be the first one to make the move.

I have come to appreciate the fact that those people who have made it especially in their careers are always willing to help and facilitate others to be successful too. Whether you ask for it during a face to face meeting, or through a telephone conversation or even better through an email, be sure to keep your request as formal as possible and be categorical on the specific things you desire to be supported/ mentored in.

5. How do you manage and keep track of the mentor-ship relationship?
Once you have identified a mentor, and he has accepted to engage with you as a mentee, develop a formal working relationship which amongst other things should have the key deliverable (things you desire to learn), schedule of meetings (whether face to face or virtual) and some way of reviewing and reporting the progress you are making and the challenges you are facing. Ideally, the relationship should have a time line, though most of the time once the relationship begins; it tends to be ongoing albeit on a less intensive basis.

6. Age. Must the mentor be older than me?
In most cases you will find the mentor is older than the mentee; but this is not mandatory.

7. What other factors should one consider when selecting a mentor?

There are 2 key factors to consider:-

(a)Seek out for positive and pleasing personality, besides successful track record. You may have people who are good at what they do but they do not love it. Look for successful people who are passionate and knowledgeable about what they do, and yet not intimidating - they will vibrate very positive energy that fuels you to success sooner.

(b)Seek out for people of integrity:- This you can be able to gauge through the progress review process. Are they available for you? Are they interested in the relationship? Do they keep their word? Can they be trusted?

8. Can one have more than one mentor?
If you are able to manage multiple mentor-mentee relationships, and you are sure to be able to balance and yield the best results from more than one mentor-ship engagement, this is really up to you. However, different mentors may have different approaches to what they do and if not careful, this can be confusing. Be aware of this factor and determine what would be a perfect blend that would optimize on your learning.

9. How can I reward and motivate my mentor?
One of the best rewards to your mentor is keeping them in the loop and celebrating your success with them no matter how small. Remain accountable during the whole engagement. Keeping them abreast of any challenges you may be facing.

10. When is the right time to close a mentor-ship relationship?
As indicated earlier, at the beginning of the relationship, there are key gaps the mentee has identified, and which form the basis of the relationship. Once this has been achieved, both the mentor and mentee can review to see whether there are new gaps they can continue to work on. Otherwise the relationship should ideally not end, it just becomes less formal and the meetings become irregular. However, your mentor never stops being your mentor, and he remains a key reference point for you in all your career matters and moves.

With your key questions answered, you can now step out and get yourself a mentor.
Use Google to search for mentors and mentor-ship resources.