If you want to be happy with your job and do something meaningful, becoming a mentor could help you achieve that. Being a career mentor, will not only help you develop your leadership and communication skills but will also give you the joy of helping someone.
The benefits of being a mentor might be greater than you expected, on top of getting you close to achieving career fulfillment, you will have increased salary potential and higher promotion likelihood. Mentorship is personally rewarding, helps with growing your career and job satisfaction, as well as, makes you feel more confident in your leadership abilities.
As a mentor, your job will be to answer questions, share your knowledge and expertise, and provide your mentee with career guidance and support their professional and personal goals.
If you want to achieve career fulfillment by becoming a mentor, but you need tips on how you can achieve that, here are five 5 ways you can become a career-changing mentor:
- Recognize the Types of Mentors
Learning about yourself will help with your mentorship. Start by learning the types of mentors and finding out which kind of mentor you aspire to be. You can be the companion, or the cheerleader, or maybe the master. Check out five common types of mentors below and see what mentorship styles fit best for you!
- Prioritize Their Needs
Prioritizing your mentee’s needs is very important. The best way to learn more about your mentee and be able to prioritize their needs is to ask what are some of their career goals and what they hope to accomplish in the future. You can do that by asking what they want to improve and what are their expectations for this mentorship, as well as who they aspire to be.
- Have Set Expectations
Setting clear expectations helps keep your mentorship on track and allows you and your mentee to achieve desired outcomes and goals. So your next step, after learning what your mentee goals are, should be to set expectations. Write down their goals and expectations, and have a plan of how to achieve them.
- Build Professional Relationships
Not everyone has all the answers to everything. Building connections with people with relevant expertise will help you gain more knowledge to help guide your mentee. That way, you will be able to have new resources to help your mentee achieve their goals faster. So starting professional relationships and connecting with the right people it’s a very important step.
- Acknowledge and Celebrate Achievements
Make sure to celebrate their achievements, positive reinforcement is a great way to let your mentee know they are on the right track. Celebrating in a meaningful way will help them always remember your mentorship and feel excited about reaching goals. Some ideas of celebrations could include, taking them for dinner, writing them a card, and taking time to acknowledge their amazing performance.
If you want to learn more about how to become a career-changing mentor and what are the best and worst qualities to have, Mint does a great job at sharing that on the infographic below.
Please include attribution to Mint.com with this graphic.