Networking (mentoree)
As a mentoree it was fabulous – I got so much out of it. It was instrumental to my career progression and I learnt a lot about the broader public sector.
At the time I was in a small agency and didn’t know what opportunities were out there.
Personal and career goals (mentor about her mentoree)
The person I was teamed up with tended to take a lot of work on. She took responsibility for more things than she would rather be delegating to others.
So we looked at how she could separate the emotional component she was taking on in the workplace and ask more appropriate questions that enabled a shift for others. As a result, she took holidays for the first time in a long time. She also began to influence and better manage upwards.
Opened up career pathways (mentoree)
I was able to secure a new position at the end of my contract after improving my application skills through advice provided and having a sounding board outside of the department.
Increased confidence (mentoree)
Probably one of the things I learnt was about being a bit braver and a bit more of a risk taker. When I have done this
, it wasn’t as hard as I thought and made me feel like a leader trying things that would normally put me outside of my comfort zone and then observing that these new strategies worked.
Increased ability to self advocate (mentor about her mentoree)
My mentoree was in a position where she was not having her skills recognised, was being consistently devalued and having credit for her work taken by her supervisor.
She was keen to have her skills recognised and progress her public sector career. So we worked our way around on how to negotiate the public sector maze. We talked about how to market herself and get recognition. We reviewed her CV and practised interviews. All that paid off very well for her. She got a new position while halfway through the program.
