A few years ago the word “mentor” was something incomprehensible, but today every self-respecting IT company has mentors who help their smaller brothers. This method came to us, of course, from the West, and we decided to keep up with world trends. The main thing in mentoring is not to harm, but first things first!

Who is a Mentor

A mentor is your guide to all workflows. But what makes a mentor different from the rest?

• Teacher. Transfers theoretical knowledge to a person and helps to develop its application. That is, this is a person who does not possess unique knowledge, but transfers general knowledge to others.
• Trainer. Helps to develop necessary skills more, for example, deepen knowledge in self-organization.
• Coach. Focuses not on knowledge itself, but on encouraging the thinking process, analyzing problems.
• Mentor. Combines all of the above activities, works with other people, passing on their professional experience to them, identifies strengths and weaknesses, helps to avoid weaknesses.

As you can see, a mentor is the golden mean between just a teacher and a coach.

Why do Employees Need a Mentor

If you are skeptical about learning on the job, we hasten to dispel your skepticism. Mentoring is not about exams, tests, sessions. A person with experience will share with you his or her life hacks and experience, practically showing you the shortest path to the goal.

Mark Zuckerberg, for example, was mentored by Steve Jobs. It is not known how Zuckerberg’s career would have developed had it not been for Jobs’ mentoring.

Employees need a mentor primarily in order to help the specialist get to the goal quickly and painlessly. True, difficulties also arise, first of all, this concerns the human factor and the mentor’s ability to empathy. Our company also received employees who left their previous place of work due to dissatisfaction with the mentor. It was a surprise for them, because our company also has mentors, and oddly enough, everything worked out here! At meetings with HR, they talked about a different approach of the mentor and empathy, in other words, they like the person (mentor).

How to Get the Most Out of Working with a Mentor

So, you want to increase your efficiency, achieve new goals, improve your soft skills, develop time management skills through cooperation with a mentor? Then catch the tips to help you do it as efficiently as possible:

• Record goals and conditions (in writing). Discuss what you want to achieve and how long it will take. After all, your mentor also has his or her own job, so you will need to synchronize and agree on everything in advance. Our mentors always support the initiative and initiate mentoring on their own.

• Create a meeting schedule together (online, offline). Treat this as a kind of working sprint, where among all the tasks and meetings you need to make an appointment in advance. By planning ahead, you can effectively prepare for your mentor appointments.

• Active interaction. Feel free to ask questions, even if they may seem ridiculous to you. Ask for feedback, the mentor is a good friend of yours who can help you sort out the error.

• Be responsible for assignments. Of course, no one will fire you for not completing tasks from the mentor, but this knowledge and skills will affect your professionalism, which means that over time you will be able to improve your qualifications, on which your earnings depend.

Conclusion

Remember that working with a mentor will certainly bear fruit: you will become a more professional specialist, more valuable in the labor market. Only the desire to achieve something and inner motivation will help you achieve new heights! Our company actively practices mentoring, because it helps to develop effective and motivated specialists, what could be better? If you are looking for a job where work/life balance is respected and a fundamentally new concept of an IT company is being built, then visit the vacancies page and join!