Building Your Profile: Top Tips to Excel with Career Navig8r

On Career Navig8r, mentees get to choose from a selection of mentors to find the one that’s right for them. Some will be looking for just the right experience, while others will prioritise based on things like personality and teaching style.

Succeeding on our platform is all about how you sell yourself and while there’s no one right answer, there are some important factors you should consider. After all, your profile is, in many ways, your store front and your chance to sell yourself to mentees. So let’s talk about how to put your best foot forward as a mentor.

The Perfect Profile Picture

It’s easy to underestimate the importance of a good profile picture. After all, why should it make a difference to your qualifications or experience?

Although this is true, your profile picture is also the first chance your mentee will have to connect with you as a person. That’s important because, for many mentees, finding someone who’s approachable and easy to work with is just as important as finding someone knowledgeable.

Now we’re certainly not saying you need to pay through the roof for professional photos. If you have some good head shots then that’s amazing, but for our purposes a nice selfie will do.

The key, however, is to find the right balance between professional and approachable. Of course you want your mentees to see that you take this seriously but that doesn’t mean you have to put on your finest suit for the occasion – certainly not if you wouldn’t for work!

Put simply there are three rules of thumb for taking a good Career Navig8r profile picture:

• Make it clear – ensuring that your head is well centred in the frame and that the camera lens isn’t obscured
• Keep it professional – you probably shouldn’t stick your tongue out but a t-shirt isn’t the end of the world
• Remember to smile!

Above all else you should always follow that last rule. Whether you’re a senior accountant or an IT manager, a nice smile will go a long way towards showing your future mentees that you’re someone they’ll feel comfortable learning from.

Showing Your Career History

Now to the meat and potatoes of your profile: your career history.

In this regard, your profile is not unlike your CV. You want your future mentees to easily be able to see which job roles you’ve worked in so that they can see if you’re the person they’re looking for. Also like your CV, there’s no obligation to mention every job you’ve ever worked.

It’s all about relevancy. If you’re looking to train people in marketing, then mentioning your ten years as a marketing manager is a good idea. Mentioning your brief stint working in a pub while you were at university probably isn’t relevant here.

By the same token, if you’ve worked in multiple fields, then you may be interested in mentoring for different careers. With Career Navig8r, you can set up multiple listings, allowing you to only mention the jobs that are relevant to your mentee.

Presenting With Personality

Last but not least, let’s talk about your ‘about me’ section and, most importantly, how to let your personality shine through in your description.

Personality can be challenging – after all, it’s all about you. How do you write something that expresses the best of who you are in a way that will encourage potential mentees to work with you?

It’s important to note here that this is very case by case. What works for some people might not work for others

Are you someone with a strong sense of humour who likes to bring a little fun to their workplace interactions? If so, then now’s the chance to let that show with a joke or two.

Alternatively, you might be someone with a real strength of clarity. If that’s the case then take this as an opportunity to make your best case and sell mentees on why they should choose you.

You might be wondering right now if personality is really so important. After all, do mentees really decide who they want as a mentor based on whether they click with a bio.

The answer to that question is overwhelmingly yes. Although many factors – such as your rates and your experience – will undoubtedly be important, when it comes down to a choice between two similar profiles, mentees will almost always pick the one they resonate with the most.

It’s also worth mentioning that you shouldn’t try to hide or change your personality to fit what you think a mentee might want. When all’s said and done, no one personality is the right way to present a profile. Different mentees will connect with different types of people so, as with all things in life, the best way to present yourself is the way that is most authentic to you.

Speaking of which, we’d like to finish with a quick note on AI. While using AI to write your profile can be successful, you should always do so with the utmost caution. If you choose to use AI, be sure to read it over and check that it’s both factually correct and a good representation of you. Also be aware that you run the risk of having a profile that feels generic and won’t help you to stand out from the crowd.

Still not signed up with Career Navig8r? Well, what are you waiting for! Signing up is free and easy, so you’ve got nothing to lose by getting your name out there.