26.1 – Mentor Others

Purpose & Context

Career Development Professionals (CDPs) share career successes, challenges and lessons learned with mentees. CDPs support the professional growth of career development practitioners to strengthen the talent in the field.

Effective Performance

Competent career development professionals must be able to:

P1. Conduct introduction meeting:
- Share expectations, e.g. motivation, personal and career goals
- Define roles and responsibilities
- Address confidentiality, information and data sharing requirements
- Agree on details of mentorship, for example:
  - Duration, e.g. three, six, twelve months
  - Time commitment
  - Frequency of meetings, e.g. weekly, monthly
  - Meeting formats, e.g. in-person, phone, email
  - Location of meetings
  - Duration of meetings
  - Meeting cancellation process
- Clarify special needs and circumstances
P2. Prepare mentorship agreement
P3. Conduct research to support mentee’s goals, for example:
- Identify resources
- Reach out to colleagues and professional network
P4. Conduct needs assessment:
- Confirm mentee’s professional goals
- Facilitate mentee’s self-assessment
- Identify gaps in skills, knowledge and thinking
- Identify development opportunities
- Develop individual development plan (IDP)
P5. Conduct regular progress meetings:
- Ask mentee to prepare agenda for meeting
- Prepare for meeting, e.g. identify strategy to address agenda items
P6. Schedule final wrap-up meeting to establish closure:
- Share experiences and impact, e.g. refer to IDP
- Evaluate mentee’s perception of the success of the mentorship, e.g. usefulness of mentorship to accomplish
  career goals
- Evaluate own perception on the success of the mentorship, e.g. mentee’s personal growth

Knowledge & Understanding

Competent career development professionals must know and understand:

K1. Components of an individualized development plan (IDP)
K2. Legislation and procedures relevant to confidentiality and privacy, e.g. Personal Information Protection and
Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)

Contextual Variables

Competent career development professionals must be able to perform this competency in the following range of contexts:

None

Glossary & Key References

Terms

Industry-specific terms contained in the standard defined here, where applicable.

None

Information Sources and Resources for Consideration

British Columbia Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. YMCA next step mentoring program: Mentorship Best Practices Toolkit. YWCA Metro Vancouver. November 2017. https://ywcavan.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/Mentorship_Best_Practices_Toolkit_Oct2017_web_0.pdf

Context Rating Scales

Criticality

Q: What is the consequence of a professional being unable to perform this skill according to the standard?

Minimal risk: SOMEWHAT CRITICAL

Frequency

Q: How frequent and under what conditions is this skill performed?

Circumstantially, e.g. per project, when a specific event arises

Level of Difficulty

Q: Under routine circumstances, how would you rate the level of difficulty in performing this skill?

Minimal difficulty or complexity

Time Required to Gain Proficiency

Q: What is the average length of time or number of repeated events that are minimally necessary for an individual to become proficient in performing the skill to the standard?

A competent career development professional requires a minimum of two years of experience mentoring at least 3 different mentees, representing a variety of individuals.

Autonomy

Practitioners typically perform this competency without supervision, and alone.

Automation

It is unlikely that this competency will automate.

Requisite Work Aids, Tools, Equipment or Materials

None