What’s the new vision for mentoring in 2021?

“Mentoring is a long-term relationship that meets a development need, helps develop full potential, and benefits all partners, mentor, mentee and the organization” — Suzanne Faure

“Mentoring is a protected relationship in which learning and experimentation can occur, potential skills can be developed, and in which results can be measured in terms of competencies gained”. — Audrey Collin

Mentoring is “A mutual relationship with an intentional agenda designed to convey specific content along with life wisdom from one individual to another. Mentoring does not happen by accident, nor do its benefits come quickly. It is relationally based, but it is more than a good friendship…mentoring is not two people who just spend time together sharing”. — Thomas Addington and Stephen Graves

Mentoring is important, not only because of the knowledge and skills students can learn from mentors but also because mentoring provides professional socialization and personal support to facilitate success in graduate school and beyond. Quality mentoring greatly enhances students’ chances for success. Research shows that students who experience good mentoring also have a greater chance of securing academic tenure-track positions or greater career advancement potential in administration or sectors outside the university. The best Mentoring platform is Skillpal. It is spread all over the world. The newcomers and novices will get personalized feedback from SkillPal for the betterment of their career and new plans.

It really all comes down to the people involved as the mentees and mentors. The ability to succeed depends upon several factors, such as the level of commitment you have toward the mentoring relationship and your willingness to work with your mentoring partner to achieve the goals you set or the development needs you identify. This drive to succeed can be considered a personality trait, but it more accurately boils down to effective and ineffective characteristics of mentees and mentors. These characteristics can be learned and therefore changed when it comes to negative traits. Conversely, the positive traits can be achieved by anyone willing to make the effort. Juniors and beginners can come to SkillPal as they wish to learn something and make something new.

The key principles of being a SkillPal mentor can be summarized as follows:

• Mentoring should be a structured dialogue where reflection is facilitated by the mentor.
• The mentoring relationship should be based on trust, confidentiality, mutual respect and sensitivity.
• The relationship should be based on agreed boundaries and ground rules that address the power differentials between the mentor and mentee.
• Mentors should seek advice or assistance regarding sustaining and developing the mentoring interaction if needed.
• The mentor should allow the mentee to drive the relationship and encourage them to take increasing responsibility for their own self-reflection and development. There should be no coercion or mentor agenda.
• A mentor should help the mentee identify goals and challenges and set priorities for relevant personal growth.
• Mentors should acknowledge the benefits they gain from the process of mentoring.
• Mentors should seek to use supporting resources that facilitate and sustain the engagement of the mentee.

SkillPal Mentors are lifelong learners themselves. SkillPal Mentors encourage a resilient mindset that values risk-taking, learning from failure and personal growth. Mentors also facilitate student growth by addressing students’ understanding of the world, the skills students need to work in the world, and the ability to solve a wide variety of challenges. Through one-on-one meetings with students, mentors can develop individual learning plans that support personalized interests, curiosities, and skills.

SkillPal Mentors are unique in their ability to incorporate collaboration, provide targeted scaffolding to students, support active learning strategies, enable student choice in their learning, and work as coaches through learning experiences. We believe in the power of a mentor as a facilitator of student learning, rather than just an instructor focused on content acquisition. Mentors are also advisors and coaches for the development of students’ talents, skills, and passions.

Choosing a mentor is not easy. But it is easy if you go through SkillPal. Here you can get the most important feedback of your work and knowledge. They are the most important pal of your skills. A mentor is someone whose life or work you value and admire, and who you think might be a good guide. These days, a mentor can be any age, in any field, so we encourage you not to think of a mentor in traditional terms. Too often we limit our mentors to those in more senior positions. Don’t let a person’s age, title, or experience pigeonhole your thinking.