Mentoring is a way of supporting people's personal and career development. It involves understanding the career issues and direction of an individual (the mentee) and matching them with someone who has suitable experience in a similar area (the mentor) to help them progress.
Mentoring is highly effective as:
by definition, it is a supportive form of development involving empathy and encouragement on the part of the mentor
it focuses on helping an individual manage their career and improve their skills
it allows personal issues to be discussed more productively, unlike coaching where the emphasis is on performance at work.
CIPR Comms Connect is a new mentoring and professional development programme open to CIPR members. The scheme is designed to bring together candidates at different stages of their professional development and over an agreed period of time to help them realise their career potential. As part of the programme, the CIPR will provide mentors with a support kit as well as comprehensive training on becoming a trusted advisor.
The interaction between both mentor and mentee can be extremely rewarding and there is not a huge time commitment required by either party. The CIPR is looking for volunteer mentors (with more than eight years industry experience) and mentees (with more than two years of industry experience) for this programme.
The March pilot has now closed for mentee applicants but the CIPR is open to interest being registered in the autumn programme.
