Mentoring

I was writing about finding a mentor as an editorial recently, and it occurred to me that this is one of the items I talk about for the Modern Resume. A mentor is a kind of leader, providing counsel, advice, support, and knowledge to someone else. It's about helping someone get where they want to go and using your own experiences and thoughts to do so.

I guess you could be a type of thought leader when you are a mentor. Someone listens to you and considers what you have to say.

What does that have to do with you? I'd say for the most part that noting these experiences, documenting them somehow, and being able to talk about them, shows a skill that many people look for in an employee. You can blog about them, or just be ready to talk about them in an interview, but just as you should have stories about good and bad experiences, you should keep track of times when you've mentored someone.

The synergies from a team of people come from their interactions, their feeding off each other, but also when a person with a strength in some area helps another that's weak in that same area. That's part of what mentoring is.

Keep that in mind as you go through your career. Look to help, or inspire someone else.