Discover the Benefits of Mentoring for a Developer's Career: 4 Tips
Find out what mentoring is, its benefits, and how it can help you upgrade your career.
Reaching the top of your career is every professional's dream, right? And we know the path isn’t as simple as it seems. Besides the natural difficulties encountered throughout a professional life, we often find ourselves so caught up in the daily rush that we don't have time to invest in or plan our professional future, leaving this crucial area to chance.
It may seem ironic, but it isn't. Frequently, we're so focused on the present to meet certain demands (financial or personal) that we forget to think about the future.
To ensure a promising future in any profession, planning is essential. It involves literally stopping everything to ask: where do I want to be in 5 or 10 years? Once this question is answered, the next one is: is the path I'm taking leading me there?
If this scenario resonates with you and these questions make you reflect on your current career situation, we’ll present the benefits of professional mentoring and show how it can help you plan your future with more confidence, helping you reach your place of prominence faster.
Curious? Come with us as we explain everything about mentoring and its benefits for your career. Let's go!
What is Mentoring?
Mentoring, or mentoring, is nothing more than the transfer of knowledge. It's that simple. It's when someone more experienced helps another person with less professional experience to advance in their career.
During meetings (or sessions), the mentor transfers their knowledge to the mentee in a personalized and assertive manner, addressing the mentee's current professional questions and concerns. The mentor acts as a support to the mentee, teaching good professional practices and encouraging technical improvement.
One of the greatest benefits of mentoring is that the learning is targeted. It's not about teaching generalized methods of "how to grow in your profession."
In professional mentoring, the mentee shares their career-related questions, doubts, and even anxieties, and the mentor, being experienced in the relevant professional area, can guide them calmly, using their own experiences and knowledge, reducing the chances of mistakes.
Being able to chart a less tortuous, confident, and error-free professional path means reaching your goals faster. Considering all these points, mentoring can be summarized as a career acceleration process.
Types of Mentoring
There are two types of mentoring, both of which, if well applied, bring very positive results:
INTERNAL MENTORING: Where a company uses the knowledge of more experienced professionals to assist newer or less experienced ones in specific roles. Some companies have mentoring programs integrated into their Organizational Human Development (OHD) activities, which is very cool!
EXTERNAL MENTORING: This involves hiring a mentor from the market, an expert in a specific area, to transfer knowledge to the mentee, which we'll discuss more shortly.
In both cases, mentoring forms a mentoring group, which consists of professional colleagues who are "available" to help the mentee with practical issues related to their profession.
Areas of Mentoring
Mentoring benefits can be applied in numerous areas, such as business management for entrepreneurs, personal finance organization, and even guidance on which specialization to pursue within a specific field of development.
In the business sector, there was a 78% increase in the number of business mentors from 2019 to 2020, according to the Brazilian Association of Business Mentors (ABMEN). Additionally, ABMEN estimates an average annual growth of 19.5%, with long-term expansion expectations. No one wants to risk investing all their savings in a business without precise guidance, right?
Benefits of Mentoring for the Technology Sector
Mentoring benefits can yield significant results in various professions and fields, especially in the Technology sector.
Consider the career of a Software Development professional. To stand out, this professional must not only have comprehensive technical knowledge—being an expert in programming languages, for example—but also stay updated with market trends related to their profession.
Few professions require as high a level of professional updating as software development. In this field, there is no choice: failing to stay updated risks becoming a less valuable developer to the market. How can you grow in this way? Think about it!
Mentoring for Growth
When you receive professional guidance, besides staying updated, you focus your energy on the path that truly matters. With the backing of mentoring, you bet all your chips without fear of making mistakes.
Here are 4 benefits mentoring can bring to your career:
- Targeted Guidance
Focus on gaining knowledge and improving your professional area with strategies for career growth. Unlike courses, mentoring guidance is tailored to the individual's needs and profile, not a one-size-fits-all formula. - Networking
A mentor can connect you with other professionals in your field, allowing you to exchange experiences and expand your professional network, strengthening your career trajectory. - Cost Reduction
By planning your career and knowing exactly where you want to go, you save time and money that would otherwise be spent on unnecessary training and courses, focusing only on what will help boost your career. - Error Reduction
As mentioned, mentoring allows you to follow a career path with fewer mistakes, or at least significantly minimizes errors along the way.
This is because mentoring greatly reduces the probability of errors since the mentor proposes what has worked well, leaving behind the mistaken experiences they have witnessed in their career. The success rate increases the chances of growth.
Is Mentoring Coaching?
No, it isn't! Mentoring refers to the transfer of knowledge: an experienced professional supports and encourages a less experienced professional to improve their professional techniques. This is different from coaching, which is based on psychology and behavioral sciences and isn't necessarily applied by someone who has been on the front lines of the business or area.
In mentoring, the professional's experience is proven by having performed functions similar to the mentee's, with the focus on achieving a concrete goal.
At IT Lab, mentoring is a deeply rooted practice in our daily activities. With a culture that takes the open-door policy seriously, the space to support professional development and even the guidance of specializations in technology is not only present but has become a natural part of our routine.
Most importantly, this mentoring applies not only to technical direction but also to the development of professional and behavioral skills, enabling professionals to build a well-rounded career progression.
This support yields results across all aspects of our business: providing the necessary foundation for developing more complete and prepared professionals and delivering projects with greater quality and innovation for our clients.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to develop your career in a company that supports your growth, join IT Lab!
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