Mentoring 101

Starting your own business is a huge challenge and along with the excitement, it’s reasonable to feel more than a little nervous. After all, the future is uncertain and while your plans may feel clear to you, there’s no telling how those plans will fare in practice.

Working in IT can be an incredibly fun and rewarding career. That being said, there’s no denying the fact that, no matter your specific role, people who work in IT spend a lot of their time ‘putting out fires’. Sometimes this can be an exciting challenge, but it can also be stressful and exhausting.

It’s a sad truth that, once you pass a certain point, the better you get at a skill, the harder it is to progress. This plateau is not only frustrating but often incredibly demotivating. After all, what’s the point in trying to improve when you’ve passed the point of progress?

Coming from a business background, mentoring might feel like the natural next step in your career but for some that step can seem daunting. After all, just because you had a successful career, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to teach the secret of your success to others, does it?

As an ever-growing industry, getting into IT can feel a bit like dipping your toe into a vast and almost endless ocean. That being said, working with a mentor who has a good grounding of the important fields in IT can really help you get a grip on things.

As a mentor, you’ll do lots of teaching, sharing your knowledge with your mentee to help them find their way along the career path they’ve always dreamed of. But what can you do when your lessons aren’t hitting home? How can you help to ensure that your mentee is learning as effectively as possible?