Having somebody you can turn to for advice in business and life is a major part of ones own development strategy and plan. Mentoring has advanced in the last five years, with many more business people wanting to mentor people, they feel they are putting something back into business and life.
My first encounter as a mentor was with the Prince’s Trust back in 1997, I was asked to look after a young person who had fallen on hard times, had great ideas in the music industry, over a few years he opened-up his own recording studio and found fame and fortune. Can not say who it is, but I had to help with business plans from finance, business awareness to marketing.
The scheme Steve Cole manages is the Career Development Centre Mentoring Scheme, currently there are 97 mentors and 97 students, the scheme was launched in 2010, will start off again in September 2014 recruiting students Mentors on the scheme include human resources, finance, public relations, asset management, construction, teaching, policy, legal architecture professional amongst many others.
I have been involved with the mentoring scheme for three years, helping students with advice about their careers, cv’s and building their positives for jobs with interviewing, in both instances I have tried to build their skills. It is great to see students achieve a great deal from this scheme.
Another positive point to mentoring is on small modules, without vast numbers of students, you can allow time to mentor students, I have also introduced this on masters and now on smaller under-graduate modules.
I have found that it works very well with certain degrees as students really appreciate one-to-one mentoring tuition. I have always received very positive feedback as students feel somebody really is there for them.
Trying to find the best mentor can be a problem, because of time these days is at a premium, you need to see if you have synergy with the student you wish to mentor.
Mentoring has a very colourful history, it was Hommer’s classic tale the Odyssey that first gave the rise to the concept of a mentor. The story is set is that Ulysses goes off to war, before he leaves the Royal household, he gives guidance to his son Telemachus and leaves him in the trusted hands of one of his friends called Mentor.
In the late 1700’s the word mentor becomes a noun in the English language meaning counsellor, today it is somebody normally with experience who can offer guidance.
The Careers Department is a positive first step in finding a mentor to help you, visit the Career Development Centre blog for updates.
This blog is written by James Knight.
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Thanks James.
First and second year undergraduate students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds may also be interested in the National Mentoring Consortium scheme that I managed for the University.
Details of this and the above Career Development Centre scheme will be publicised widely via the CDC prospects net jobs and events system (register via the home page) and the CDC blog and twitter acoount from early September.