Career mentoring is an important step in preparing mentees for the workforce. It helps boost a mentee’s confidence and trust within themselves, and has a positive effect on their job satisfaction in the future
There are four key principles in career mentoring.
- Introduce the mentee to a workplace and the variety of roles within it.
- Engage the mentee in career conversations about your job and the education and career decisions that led you to it. At the same time encourage your mentee to talk about their interests and ideas. Offer lots of opportunities for them to ask you questions.
- Provide a series of workplace activities that will allow the mentee to actively connect to your job. This approach can result in rich career conversations.
- Encourage further exploration of possible career paths in your industry sector by helping them identify possible next steps they could take to encourage students to check out options or firm up ideas.
Mentoring can take place in any setting. There are no hard and fast rules.
What to talk about
Topics you could talk about with ShadowTech Teacher participants include:
- The importance of growing students employability skills – teamwork, communication skills, a positive attitude, willingness to learn, resilience, self-management and thinking skills.
- How they could prepare students for a career in IT – school subject choices, the variety of tertiary education options and the value of exploring possibilities before making final decisions.
Effective Career Conversations
Effective mentoring involves focusing on the student’s interests and career ideas. Read our tips now!
Your biggest gift to the students’, above all else, is your genuine interest in helping them explore and understand your industry and how it works.
In the future, if you would like to continue to mentor in a more formal way, further information is available on the Careers New Zealand.
