Here’s some basic information about becoming a Careers in Ideas mentor. If you’d like to know more, or are interested in signing up, please contact the scheme leader Carol Nyahasha at [email protected].
Do also take a look at this fantastic article Carol wrote about the benefits of mentoring, for mentors as well as the people they help.
Who can be a mentor?
If you’re an IP professional and would like to become a mentor, we’d love to hear from you. It doesn’t matter what your role is, or your career level, or where you work, so long as it’s somewhere in the UK IP sector. You’re sure to have useful information and experiences to share with others who want to join the IP professions. And we need all sorts of mentors – including those who’ve joined the profession more recently (because they know what it’s really like to find a job here) or who are involved in recruitment.
What level of commitment is involved?
The time commitment isn’t huge. You can offer to help as many or as few mentees as you like, and each one will have access to a fixed number of mentoring sessions spread over an appropriate period of time.
What platform do we use?
We use the online MentorLoop platform to match mentors with suitable mentees. This helps us streamline processes, reduce the administrative burden and generally ensure that both mentees and mentors get the best out of the scheme. You’ll communicate with your mentee via the platform, so as to provide an appropriate degree of privacy and protection for both of you.
What training and support do we provide?
We provide training and support for all mentors, on the MentorLoop platform as well as on general mentoring techniques and the support and safeguards available through IP Inclusive.
By way of a taster, we held an introductory training session for would-be mentors in October 2021. This included an introduction to the mentoring role from Julie Barrett of Purposive Step, with advice about whether the role is for you, what you can expect to get out of it and what you’ll need to commit. The training also covered some of the formal aspects of the mentoring role, and the support and safeguards in place for all participants through the IP Inclusive structure. You can listen to a recording of this “part one” training session here. The speaker presentations are here (Julie Barrett’s introduction to mentoring) and here (Andrea Brewster’s guide to the formal and governance aspects).
Part two of the training is more interactive. It provides in-depth guidance on the mentor-mentee relationship, and practical advice to help mentors cope with the difficulties they might encounter. It also includes an introduction to the MentorLoop platform.
We ask all mentors to complete a similar two-part training course before they join the Careers in Ideas Mentoring Hub. Mentors will also be expected to comply with the IP Inclusive Volunteers’ Code of Conduct. The other formal policies mentioned in the introductory training session are available on the IP Inclusive Management page.
I’m interested! What next?
You can find some basic information about the scheme in this information sheet. Do take a look. And if you’d like to get involved – or have some questions before you do – please contact the scheme leader Carol Nyahasha at [email protected].
