SYDNEY, Australia -- Mentorship is a less traveled avenue for career progression that places emphasis on self-improvement to boost career outcomes. A good mentor will teach you the importance of consistent leadership, how to develop critical problem solving skills and general work knowledge – attributes that are very important in today’s competitive work environment.
Securing a mentor can have immense benefits for someone looking to get ahead in their career. Mentors can help you re-align your career focus, prioritize objectives, eliminate career related anxieties and most importantly – teach you how to lead – the number one attribute for any person looking to get into a management position. Here’s a few tips to help you source, secure and survive a mentorship program.
Seek and you shall find
Mentors are a high achieving, esteemed, refined and senior lot. They are most often a very influential decision maker within an organization, earn a very decent living and are generally time poor individuals with no interest – at the beginning- in outside-of-work coaching. Does this individual sound like someone you want to get in contact with and ask for career guidance? If your answer is no, then a mentorship program is probably not something you are ready for. Before you decide though, just remember that most people are entirely reasonable with such a request and you should not be offended if a potential mentor says no.
Pitch high if you’re aiming high
If your answer was yes, in regards to calling a senior business executive and pitching your USP to try and score a mentorship program – then you deserve one! Communicate your unique leadership qualities, career ambitions and most importantly – your unshakable desire to learn new business processes and to lead an organization department by example.
We guarantee such admirable qualities will warrant a response from a qualified mentor, especially on the leadership front.
Be prepared for terms and conditions
It’s never easy to ask someone to donate some of their time towards helping you reach your goals. No one’s time is free and you should be prepared to work around your mentor’s timetable in order to lock in an appointment. Terms of the mentorship should always suit the mentor, and not you, and the moment you’re late to an appointment or worse – absent without explanation to an appointment – consider the deal over.
Mentorship is all about compromise and you should always choose a 7:30am Saturday morning breakfast meeting over going out on the town the night before. Routine discipline is key and demonstrates to your mentor that you can adhere to a schedule.
Communicate it!
Poor communication skills and unreliable behaviour will instantly or eventually scare your mentor away from investing their time and knowledge in boosting your career outcomes. In addition to being a total waste of everyone’s time, failing your mentor by not honouring your initial USP’s and appointments could put you at risk of lowering your USP’s to ‘high risk’ status.
This could potentially poison your reputation amongst circles and it’s really important to be honest, direct and timely with your communications. It’s not just a matter of personal integrity, but also demonstrates that you show a genuine interest in obtaining knowledge from your mentor.
Perception is everything
If a potential mentor sees value in you and is impressed by your dispositions – they will ask questions and register their interest by making an offer to invest their time in you.
Find your voice
A mentorship program is all about embracing leadership and building the confidence required for you to make fast, calculated, accurate and actionable decisions in a management-business role. Finding a good mentor is like having a brutally honest second opinion and for younger professionals looking to move forward, it pays to show respect and to listen to an industry veteran who can tell it to you how it is.
Never forget that a senior decision maker within an organization had to start somewhere to. Find yourself a mentor today and begin transferring the knowledge that will set you up for success in your career.
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Job Support Australia
