Five Reasons Why Mentors Are Worth the Investment

The role of a mentor in professional development is a crucial one, but sadly it’s also one that’s increasingly disappearing from the business world. As companies look to tighten their ships and increase efficiency, many are becoming unwilling to train new staff or foster good mentoring relationships.

Fortunately, this isn’t the only way. In recent years, online mentoring has sprung up as an excellent new way for people to get industry experience without working in industry. Today we’d like to talk about why online mentors are so valuable to those starting their careers and the benefits you could gain from working with one.

1. Professional Development

Mentoring for professional development is one of the most effective ways to set yourself up for a long and healthy career.

While starting in a junior role and working your way up can be great for hands-on learning, the traditional job path also has one major downside and that downside is blind spots. When you learn on the go, you rarely get the most comprehensive understanding of a subject. It’s a great way to build up practical knowledge but it can make you far less versatile.

Working with a mentor can give you step by step training, combining both the practical knowledge of experience with the broader benefits of a teaching environment. In the long run, this can be incredibly beneficial for your career prospects.

2. Making Contacts

One major benefit of professional mentoring that many people overlook is a mentor’s ability to help you make connections.

On the one hand, they can train you in the specific networking skills of your particular industry. They’ll be able to tell you where the best places are to meet people, the types of conversations it’s worth striking up, and give you advice about ways you might present yourself.

More than that, however, a mentor can introduce you to their network of contacts, giving you a direct path into the industry. As your mentor, they get a clear insight into your skills and abilities, meaning that they can genuinely recommend you off of the back of your proven knowledge.

3. The Benefits of Experience

And it’s not just about breaking into the industry either. Spend more than a decade working in any role and your perspective will inevitably change. In many ways you’ll become more knowledgeable about best practices, learning how to set yourself up for success when it comes to large projects. At the same time, you also learn which corners can be cut in order to maximise efficiency.

In some respects, there’s no replacing the benefits of all that experience. After all, there’s a comfort and confidence that comes with having spent a long time in one specific role. That said, a mentor can absolutely help to instill some of the more subtle truths of what they do in a way that could genuinely save you years of time and hassle.

4. Getting Ahead

Saving you hassle at work is great, of course, but the real benefit of your mentor’s experience comes in how it will affect your job prospects. Put simply, the candidate that picks up the job faster, and is more capable, is the candidate who is most likely to be considered for promotion.

A junior with the knowledge and attitude of a senior always stands out and, before too long, companies take note. In just a year or two, you could be looking at a job promotion and, once you can put ‘senior’ on your resume, that’s a permanent upgrade to your job prospects.

5. Experiencing A Mentor Relationship

If you’re looking to have a long career in any industry then, sooner or later, you’ll need to learn to be a mentor yourself. Whether you’re just teaching something simple to a peer or training up a new staff member, you’ll need to know the best ways of teaching, as well as how to inspire those working underneath you.

Having a mentor is an amazing opportunity to see how a successful professional teaches and communicates. After all, their methods will be honed through decades of use while your learning experience will give you a direct insight into the most effective ways to teach.

Ultimately, it’s hard to express just how valuable a team-focused attitude can be in your career. When you step into an interview, you want them to see a person who knows how to listen and how to teach, someone who’s willing to work with others and can also take feedback to improve the quality of their own work. Having a mentor could teach you all of this and more.

Paying to work with a mentor might seem like an expensive investment up front, but you’ll be reaping the rewards for the rest of your career.