Mentorship is amongst the most popular ways of learning. Most companies have corporate mentoring programs. They may differ, but the essence is the same: a more experienced employee gives advice to a less experienced one. This is beneficial for a company: employees achieve results faster, employee loyalty increases, and business indicators grow accordingly. But this process does not necessarily need to be built in the form of a corporate program. A specialist from any company, even a freelancer, can become your mentor. As long as they have the knowledge and expertise necessary to help accelerate your career.
Let's figure out what mentorship is, how to choose a mentor and how a mentor can help you win your career race.
Mentorship
Mentorship is the interaction between a mentor - a more experienced specialist - and a mentee – a less experienced specialist – with the goal of solving difficult problems and achieving career growth. A mentor shares their experience, advises a mentee on how to achieve their goals faster, helps find a solution in non-standard situations, and acts as a tracker of a mentee's achievements and goals.
Do not think that the mentor will decide everything for you. This is not the case. A mentor is needed to direct your thoughts and energy in the right direction. A mentor teaches you how to think and helps you learn. They will be there at every step to correct you or suggest the most effective methods for organizing your code.
How to choose a mentor?
As a rule, mentors are specialists who have plenty of experience and a great desire to share it. Therefore, when looking for a mentor, you should first pay attention to their professional experience and overall attitude. For example, if you have a company you dream of working for, then you could look for a mentor who is currently working there or has done so in the past.
Working with a mentor often lasts for several months, so when choosing a specialist, it is very important that you like them not only on a professional level, but also on a personal one, so that an emotional connection is established between you, and you both have similar soft and hard skills. Then the chance that joint work will quickly bear fruit increases exponentially, allowing you to move up your career ladder much faster.
The benefits of working with a mentor
After realizing all the benefits of mentorship, its importance for career development and growth, we decided that we wanted to help people win their career race and founded Boostly, a platform for finding industry experts for 1 on 1 mentorship in the field of IT. We believe that stories from students can best tell you about the benefits that mentorship can bring, so below are some of them:
Our student, Rohan, first approached a mentor while holding a Junior position. With a main goal of increasing his existing grade. To do this, the mentor tested the mentee and compiled a roadmap based on Rohan’s weaknesses and unexplored topics in the field of Python development. Then, this map was used as a learning plan until Rohan’s goal was reached. After 3 months of training, Rohan was able to improve his grade, get a promotion and increased salary.
Another one of our students, Shantanu, an analyst at a large bank, solved a complicated task that slowed down his company’s internal processes after two sessions with a mentor. Thanks to this, the mentee not only achieved exceeding results at work, but also received a pay raise. He noted that working with a mentor is a great opportunity to resolve the difficulties that may arise at work, when you have no one to turn to for help.
These cases once again confirm that by choosing the right mentor and setting clear goals, you will not only achieve your desired results, but also significantly shorten the path towards your goals, and win your career race.
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