Deciding on whether you should get involved in mentoring or not? Surprisingly, only 37% of professionals have one! Here, we will help you understand why it’s important to seek out a mentor for self-development, career progression, and overall confidence.
understand why it’s important to seek out a mentor for self-development, career progression, and overall confidence.
In this article, you will learn the benefits of mentoring as a graduate, as well as being a graduate mentor. Our free service where you can search for a graduate mentor will benefit you in more ways than one and will aid you in a successful career and personal life. Numerous studies have been carried out on the positive effects that mentoring can have, from confidence to mental health to promotion likelihood, and here they are to help you make your decision…
Benefits for Professional Development
- Job satisfaction will naturally increase with the help of a mentor. They will guide you to reaching your career goals which will help you feel successful and fulfilled within your job.
- A promotion is five times more likely to happen to you with a mentor, than not having one.
- Personal networking is much easier with a mentor by being introduced to a whole range of inspirational and important people, outside of your colleagues. Once that connection is made, this can potentially have a large impact on your career.
- Increased productivity will allow you to manage your time more efficiently and get a lot more work done, such as starting you off on how to write a graduate CV, and aid you in many other areas to keep you motivated.
- Job-related wellbeing will increase along with confidence, self-esteem, and learning a better work-life balance.
- Interview preparation can be difficult, especially if you’re reaching for that dream job! A mentor can give you great interview tips to land your graduate job, for the future, and heighten your career aspirations. With your mentor, you will be guided and shown different areas within your chosen profession. This will increase your understanding of the industry, thus allowing you to decide exactly where you want to take your career.
Benefits for Personal Development
- Higher self awareness will help you understand your strengths, weaknesses and even your values. Gaining the ability to self-analyse those traits will help you along within your personal life and career development.
- Confidence will increase and you will acquire the capability to stand up for yourself in challenging situations. You will also gain the self-confidence to share ideas comfortably in professional meetings after you slowly start reaching your career goals from regular mentor meetings! This will also positively impact your mental health, with the support you will have.
- Reduce anxiety through understanding yourself more and what you want out of your career.
- New ways of thinking can be taught through mentoring, and you will be exposed to fresh ways to problem solve! This can be relevant in partnership, and encourage innovation in the workplace.
- Ability to give and receive feedback is something that is so important to learn, it will allow you to develop personally or as a colleague and/or manager. It can be difficult to give feedback honestly and effectively, but can also be difficult to hear constructive feedback. Having a mentor will give you the tools to learn how to do this successfully.
Benefits for Mentors
- Carve out your career direction by gaining more experience in the field that you love. Find knowledge gaps, improve on them and share your learning journey with a graduate!
- Improving communication skills is a valuable tool under your belt that will help you progress in all areas of your life, professionally, personally and to help you advance in the workplace. Being able to build rapport with people on all levels can help improve your overall success.
- Building your professional network by meeting, greeting and chatting with others with similar interests. If your area of expertise is something niche, or even something more widely-known, it’s important to expand on your network for new opportunities – be this social or professional.
- Developing a personal brand is a key part of becoming a well-rounded and respected industry professional. You can add graduate mentoring to your CV, and LinkedIn profile to showcase your skills, personality, and reputation. Becoming a Graduate Mentor can vastly improve how you market yourself to others.
- Improving your CV can be a real challenge in today’s candidate-driven market. After the challenge of COVID-19, we have found that there are lots of candidates out on the job market but few jobs that are an ideal match for them. In order to stand out from the crowd, consider being a graduate mentor and showcase your interpersonal skills and passion for your industry.
- Cultivating confidence in many ways – namely, as your mentee will reaffirm your abilities and knowledge, which can give you a boost! Research suggests as your self-confidence increases, anxiety and levels of isolation decrease (Gill & Roulet, 2012).
To conclude, we can see that not only are our mentees hugely benefiting from this scheme, but our mentors can really profit too! Research from Ghosh & Reio (2012) shows that mentoring is reciprocal and collaborative and not simply beneficial for only mentees. Not only can being a mentor increase your leadership and overall interpersonal skill-set but can leave you a sense of self-satisfaction that can benefit all areas of your life. With all of this in mind, book a mentor today to take advantage of all these benefits!
