The Best Way to Ask For Online Mentorship and Approach to SkillPal.

There’s no doubt that a great mentor can be invaluable to your career — after all, mentors are able to provide you with insightful feedback, introduce you to important connections and maybe even help you find your dream job. Unfortunately, a great mentorship opportunity rarely just lands in your lap. More often than not, you need to proactively reach out in order to build the kind of professional relationship that can really benefit you. But you can’t just waltz up to someone and ask, “Do you want to be my mentor?” Well, you could, but it probably wouldn’t be very effective. The purpose of mentoring is to tap into the existing knowledge, skills, and experience of high performing employees and transfer these skills to newer or less experienced employees in order to advance their careers. The SkillPal mentorship is a relationship between two people where the individual with more experience, knowledge, and connections is able to pass along what they have learned to a more junior individual within a certain field. The more senior individual is the mentor, and the more junior individual is the mentee. The mentor benefits because they are able to lead the future generation in an area they care about and ensure that best practices are passed along; meanwhile, the mentee benefits because they have proven that they are ready to take the next step in their career and can receive the extra help needed to make that advancement.

Before you ask someone to be your mentor, you should make sure that they’re the right person. “Don’t expect someone in a high-level leadership role, like the CEO of a large company, to immediately agree to be your mentor. While they may want to mentor you, they might not have the time to do so,” says Mary Grace Gardner, career strategist at The Young Professionista. “A helpful mentor to have is someone who is two or three levels above you but doesn’t work directly with you. It’s more difficult for a mentor to give you neutral, constructive feedback if your work directly impacts them.” To hone in on who you should choose, think about what you need most right at this moment in your career. People who act as a mentor usually supposed to say something as free. But if you go to an expert mentor he or she maybe ask for some payment. SkillPal is here to provide expert mentors. On this platform of SkillPal, mentors supposed to provide knowledge and ideas against some money. You can get a shoutout video message regarding mentorship. This personalized video will help to develop your plans and ideas.

“Start by asking yourself how having a mentor will benefit you in your current situation and what you will gain by beginning this type of relationship,” says Eden Waldon, Career Specialist at Ama La Vida. “Perhaps you are seeking a mentor who can support your career goals and offer sound career pathing advice. Or maybe you are looking for someone with subject matter expertise to help you navigate a particular problem. You may even have different mentors that provide you with support in professional, personal and spiritual capacities.” Mentorship is best done by SkillPal. Unlike a management relationship, SkillPal mentoring relationships tend to be voluntary on both sides, although it is considered possible for a line manager to also be a mentor to the people that they manage. Unlike a coaching relationship, mentoring relationships are more usually unpaid. The idea behind mentoring relationships is a semi-charitable one: that the more successful, senior partner, the mentor, wishes to pass on some of what they’ve learned to someone else who will benefit from their experience. Some organizations run formal mentoring programmes that match mentors with learners. However, less formal mentoring relationships can also work well for SkillPal.

British mentoring programmes tend to have four key elements: improving performance, career development, counselling and sharing knowledge. In other countries, especially the US, there is also an element of the mentor acting as a sponsor for the learner, but this is not usually seen in the UK. These four features are also relevant for SkillPal also. Mentoring relationships, especially formal ones organized through a mentoring programme, are often entered into with a defined time limit, or a defined goal. Having such a framework in place can be easier for both parties to agree than an open-ended commitment. For example, a learner may agree to work with a mentor for a year, or until they achieve a particular desired promotion. After they have reached the time limit or achieved the goal, terms can be renegotiated. The mentor and learner may decide to continue to work together, especially if the relationship has been productive and helpful to both.

Asking someone to mentor you can feel a bit awkward, however — after all, this is a pretty big favour to ask. So before you pop the question, it helps to first look for indications that someone might be open to stepping into a mentorship role with you. Has this person shown an interest in you and your career? Have you had discussions about work-related questions that resulted in useful action items for you? Has he or she shared professional knowledge in a caring and supportive way? Has your potential mentor been willing to patiently spend time with you to help you grow your skills when asked? And does this person have the right knowledge/experience to address your specific mentoring issues?

If so, then you’ve probably identified someone who’s great mentor material. Your goal should be to build on those existing positive interactions to create a more structured learning relationship. And that starts with you first thinking through exactly what goals you have for the relationship, how to structure your work together, and what specifically you’re going to ask your mentor to do.

Schedule an initial conversation. Ask your potential mentor if he or she can make time for a 15–30 minute chat with you. You don’t want to be rushed, and you want plenty of time for the other person to ask you questions about your goals, etc.

Clearly describe the guidance you’re seeking. This is where that preliminary brainstorming on your part will help you articulate just what you have in mind.

Confirm your willingness to do the necessary work and follow-through. There’s nothing more frustrating than mentoring someone who doesn’t do the work necessary to take advantage of the advice, so you want to make it clear to your potential mentor that you’re ready to commit the time, energy and effort to make the most of their counsel (and time).

Acknowledge and respect the individual’s time. Most people who are asked to become mentors are highly successful in their careers, which means they’re also very busy and much in demand. So it’s important for you to acknowledge that reality, and make it clear how much you appreciate their considering your request. This is also the way to provide a graceful “out,” letting the other person cite an overbooked schedule for declining your request.

From my experience, a good SkillPal mentor must possess the following characteristics:

· Extensive experience in a related or relevant field

· Similar educational background

· Has overcome relatable challenges

· Friendly and genuine personality

· Credible and trustworthy character

· Must not feel threatened by empowering others

· Favorably disposed to flexible mentoring styles

· Open to learning from the mentee

Education gives us a knowledge of the world around us and changes it into something better. It develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It helps us build opinions and have points of view on things in life. People debate over the subject of whether education is the only thing that gives knowledge. Some say education is the process of gaining information about the surrounding world while knowledge is something very different. They are right. But then again, information cannot be converted into knowledge without education. Education makes us capable of interpreting things, among other things. It is not just about lessons in textbooks. It is about the lessons of life. One thing I wish I can do is, to provide education for all: no child left behind and change the world for good!! SkillPal is one of the best platforms for providing education. In SkillPal there are so many mentors from different fields. They will come to the students via the internet or web to provide knowledge and help them to grow up. Interested candidates will ask the mentor for a video session and the expert will send a suitable message to the candidate in 7 days.