Mentors can appear at businesses, schools, workplaces or anywhere when there is someone willing to guide and someone who needs advice.
Mentors are known as advisors who share knowledge, experience, and skills development with someone to help them achieve their career goals faster. What is a mentor? What are the mentor's requirements? Discover the following information from Navigos Search to get accurate answers.
1. What is a mentor?
To understand what a mentor is and what a mentor's duties are, you need to know what mentoring is.
Mentoring is the action and process of assisting and guiding others to support their career development. Mentoring is often an activity between superiors and subordinates in the same business.
A mentor is someone who guides, advises, imparts expertise, and provides support to a mentee. Mentors frequently spend time getting to know their mentees. They use their experience and knowledge to assist mentees in issue-solving and self-improvement.
What is a mentor?
2. What are the essential requirements of a mentor?
What are the necessary skills and qualities of a mentor? Although there are no specific qualifications required, to become a mentor, you must have the following skills and qualities:
- Practical experience, professional knowledge, and deep understanding of the field being mentored: This helps mentors provide handy advice and guidance and become trustworthy.
- Listening and communication skills: Mentors must have listening skills to grasp what mentees are asking to convey information and knowledge to them effectively. These skills will help discussions and consultations go more smoothly.
- Having specific goals in common: The likelihood of success of mentees will be higher if there are goals in common. Mentees will shorten the time to reach the goal, improve work efficiency, and increase the likelihood of success.
- Trust: Both parties must have mutual trust. Once mentors have trust, they will show all their abilities to mentees to help them achieve their expectations.
- Some other qualities: Mentors must be open and honest to give the most objective comments and advice; the joy of helping others; openness; time management.
3. How to distinguish Mentoring and Coaching
Basically, Mentoring and Coaching are two terms that have similarities. First, let's look at the benefits in common that mentoring and coaching bring:
- Be effective learning methods.
- Take place in any form, formal or informal.
- Promote internal relationship cohesion when implemented within a business.
- Improve confidence and interpersonal communication skills.
- Increase work performance and personal development for Mentees.
- Applicable to any individual or business in need.
What's the distinction between Coaching and Mentoring? You can imagine through the following table:
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Mentoring
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Coaching
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- Mainly development driven.
- Often longer-term with some mentoring relationships lasting 6+ months, one or several years
- No qualifications are required.
- A lot more directive when sharing knowledge and experience with mentees
- Less structured but flexible
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- Performance driven
- Often shorter-term and may be as short as a quick 10- or 15-minute conversation
- Qualifications required.
- Non-directive which means that it is about posing the right questions, providing the space for mentees to improve themselves..
- Structured.
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How to distinguish Mentoring and Coaching
4. Why should you look for a mentor?
What is the purpose of mentoring? It is to help mentees develop and become the best version at work. A good mentor will impart essential knowledge, help mentees work more effectively, learn new skills, build confidence, and make better decisions about career goals to develop. During that process, mentors will guide mentees to help them not get "lost" or go in the wrong direction.
If you lack experience, knowledge, and skills, it's difficult and time-consuming to find your own mistakes and overcome them yourself. Therefore, finding yourself a mentor is necessary.
5. Popular types of mentoring
After knowing what a mentor is and the necessary requirements of a Mentor, let's continue to learn about popular types of mentoring activities. Currently, the most commonly used types of mentoring are:
One-on-one mentoring
One-on-one mentoring is the most popular traditional type of mentoring with the participation of one mentor and one mentee. The mentor will have extensive experience and a higher job position than Mentee.
Group mentoring
With Group mentoring, there is one or more Mentors working with a group of many mentees. This type is often applied in schools.
Peer mentoring
Peer mentoring happens when a group of people, usually in similar roles and career stages, come together to share lessons to help each other develop and achieve better work results.
Virtual mentoring
As technology develops strongly, mentoring activities do not necessarily have to take place in person. Instead, this activity can be held through online meetings, which are convenient and effective.
Reverse mentoring
Reverse mentoring happens when junior professionals mentor more senior professionals in a specific area.
This type of mentoring is utilized for up-skilling senior employees on digital technology
Speed mentoring
Speed mentoring happens in a short period of time, usually as part of a conference. Mentee will meet mentors and ask questions to get advice and consultation from them.
Popular types of mentoring
6. Where can you find mentors?
What is a Mentor and who is it? A mentor can be anyone who has knowledge, experience, and understanding in a specific field and is always willing to connect, share, and help you. Mentors can be found in businesses, schools, relationships in life, and organizations that gather Mentors.
If you need a Mentor for yourself, you can actively seek mentors on mentoring forums or find famous people in the industry you are pursuing and ask for their help. In business, you can chat with your superiors and colleagues to discuss how you want to learn more and improve your work more effectively.
Someone will become your Mentor if you are willing to learn, know how to listen, and want to be encouraged to improve yourself.
The information above has explained what a Mentor is, the necessary mentor's requirements, and the popular type of mentoring. Hopefully, Navigos Search has provided you with handy information. Don't forget to follow our pages on Linkedin and Facebook to get more accurate information on salaries in hot occupations, the human resources market, and effective ways to advance your career. Thank you for always following us!
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