Hi –I hope everyone had a great holiday. Lynn Smith is an extremely talented technology recruiter that works on my team. She has been helping me with this blog and sent this to me last week. I thought I would share it with you.

One of the things I hear time and time again from talking to folks out there is the field is the desire for professional development. Many highly visible organizations dedicate a significant amount of time and resources to developing professional training programs and opportunities for increasing skills. It is well worth your effort to take advantage of the content these programs have to offer. However, if you talk to successful people, many of them will tell you, an invaluable component of their career progression was something they took charge of themselves: They found a mentor. The value of mentorship can not be over stated, and it requires some effort on your part.

Picture this scenario; you are a top notch developer. You have certifications for every area of technical proficiency out there. You are the best at what you do. Every project you have worked on has given you kudos for your part in the project.

You feel you are ready to move into leading a team, but something always seems to hold you back.

You think about it, you have a heart to heart with yourself, and realize that your communication skills could use some work. You go over scenarios in your mind, where you still can remember the sting of “wow, I wish I would have said that differently… You determine your communication skills could be holding you back. Now you could go to your local book store, purchase every book out there on communication skills, OR……

Sitting in the next cube is a colleague equally as capable technically as you. In the last round of promotions her name was at the top of the list. You have frequently heard her speaking with supervisors, clients and colleagues. You have been on a couple of projects together.

You have often admired how she presents her thoughts, how she creates win/win opportunities for herself and those around her.

You muster up the courage to approach her, it takes everything inside you to broche the subject, “I have been thinking about ways that I could add value to the organization and felt that I would like to work on my communication skills, I have always admired your ability to communicate, and thought you might be able to give me some pointers… Is there a time we might be able to talk this week?

After a couple of conversations, you ask her if she would be your mentor... She says her schedule is tight but agrees to speak with you on a biweekly basis. You have decided you will be open, and be willing to receive feedback To your delight, you find you have learned more in two conversations with this person about how to be effective in your organization than any book you could have read.

It takes courage and effort to reach out to ask someone to be your mentor. Sometimes you will be turned down because of time constraints; sometimes a mentor /mentee relationship will run its course. Perhaps, you will choose to have several mentors, or mentor someone yourself. During our day to day responsibilities, it is often easy to lose sight of taking charge of our careers, because of aggressive time lines, numerous responsibilities, but consider this, if reaching out to someone you respect in your organization circumvents “learning things the hard way, through your own mistakes.” Why not?

Comments

Thank you for all of the comments. My area of “expertise,” (that may be a little strong, but it is my blog) is within technology recruiting. My group hires for programmers, testers, technical architects, etc. If your area of expertise is a little different please review our careers page and it will give you a good idea of hat we have open. I hope you find something that is exciting for you.