How you could benefit from using the IoBM Mentoring Scheme

Many successful professionals – from Steve Jobs to Richard Branson – have testified to the invaluable role mentoring played in their careers. No one is too experienced, too young, or too old to have a mentor.

Mentors, whether in a formal or informal capacity, can offer on-going, personalised attention that you can’t get from traditional training methods.

A mentor can provide a neutral sounding board for ideas, listening objectively and providing impartial opinions and feedback.

One of the biggest benefits of having a mentor is to learn first-hand from someone who is already in a position that you aspire to. The mentoring process allows you to learn from a mentor’s behaviours and experience and ask questions of a mentor who’s already taken a similar and successful career path.

Many professionals – especially those in the early stages of their careers – often fail to take the time to consider their long-term goals and how they want their careers to progress over time. A mentor can nudge you to begin thinking about your long-term goals, not merely where you want to be next year.

Our mentoring platform will not only enable you to be matched to a mentor who has the skills and experience that you are looking for, it provides a wealth of guides and videos to guide you through every step of the mentoring process.

Mentoring Platform Features

Ask a Question

Once you have identified a potentially suitable mentor you can use the ‘Ask Question’ feature to contact the mentor prior to sending a mentoring request to ask any additional questions you may have that would help you decide if this is the right mentor for you.

You may not want to enter a long-term mentoring relationship; you may just have a few questions you would like an experienced mentor to answer to help you solve a current issue. If this is the case the ‘Ask Question’ feature could be very useful to you.

Likewise, if a mentor receives a mentoring request, they can use the inbuilt messaging facility on the platform to contact the mentee to get any clarification they need around their requirements before deciding whether to accept or decline the request.

Meetings - Setting and Tracking

The platform also includes a meetings feature which enables you to set meetings and then to record meeting notes and action points that you can review at your next meeting.

Goal Setting

Embarking on a mentoring journey without setting out some goals around what you are looking to achieve is like embarking on a journey without identifying the destination you want to reach.

As part of our mentoring journey the first step is to identify the challenges you are facing and then set goals and milestones to focus on throughout your mentoring relationship.

You can go back into your goals at any time to record your progress and note down the milestones you reach.

Ending your relationship

Hopefully you will follow the journey steps within the platform and will have a final meeting to review your achievements before marking your mentoring journey as complete.

However, if at any point you change your mind and no longer wish to start or continue your mentoring journey, please do let your mentor/mentee know by withdrawing from the mentoring relationship.

Of course, you are not tied to following the steps in our platform, but we do hope you will find them useful in helping you to keep your mentoring relationship on track and to help ensure you achieve your goals.