By Benjamin Hindson
Mentoring is fantastic way to broaden your network, navigate the vast London Insurance Market and get some career development advice along the way. For most people, mentoring is a dynamic and reciprocal relationship where someone offers help, guidance to another to further their development.
Whether you’re involved in mentoring as a mentor or mentee, there are many benefits to both parties. As a mentee you get access to a different perspective as well as an independent view on what’s going on with you. Mentors can help to identify strengths and weaknesses and even become a role model. For mentors, it’s an opportunity to “give back” to the community and have a point of contact in another area of the market.
Additionally, mentors can get a great deal of personal satisfaction from helping someone else grow and develop their career.
Every year, NGIN offers a mentoring scheme open to people looking for mentors in the market and those looking to mentor. We’ve put together a list of top tips for getting the most out of mentoring:
For Mentees:
-Commit to the relationship you have with your mentor and be prepared.
-Think about what you want to achieve through the mentoring relationship
-Be open and honest with your mentor, whilst respecting company confidentiality.
-Take ownership of setting up meetings and putting into practice mentor recommendations
-Build a relationship: mentoring is not all about work!
For Mentors:
-Be a good role model
-Provide ongoing information and guidance
-Be invested in the mentee and do what’s best for them, not your own agenda
Respect confidentiality
-Help mentee develop resilience and identify any blind spots
Our 2018 mentoring programme will be launching in the New Year. We hope to see many of you getting involved either as a mentor or mentee and putting the top tips into practice. Remember, a lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could. For us, that’s the power of mentoring.
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