Essential skills of the mentor

The impact of an effective mentor on the professional development of an engineering graduate is significant and offers both tangible and intangible benefits to the mentor, mentee, organisation and profession. However, being a mentor does not mean that you are expected to know everything. Your professional experience, wisdom and life skills are the best starting point.  This one-hour webinar covers the key aspects required to ensure a successful launch into the role of mentoring.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the webinar you will:

• recognise the benefits of mentoring for all stakeholders, and, especially, for producing well-rounded engineers
• gain understanding about what mentoring is and isn’t (including distinctions between mentoring, coaching, managing and counselling).
• examine the key communication concepts that support successful mentoring and relationship building
• review the essentials for managing the mentee meetings
• recognise the importance of evaluating the programme. 

Intended audience

Experienced engineers who may lack confidence in, or doubt their ability to add value to new graduates, and prospective mentors who want the essential skills of the mentoring role clarified.

Presenter information

Desirée Williamson

Desirée Williamson is an accredited Belbin Team Roles facilitator. Desirée designs and facilitates workshops for public and private sector organisations on all aspects of communicating effectively. She believes the challenge of professional workplace communication is the need to align what we say about ourselves with how we communicate with our colleagues, clients and stakeholders. Desirée delivers interactive seminars that develop mentoring, oral presentation, business writing, interpersonal, team building, cross-cultural, and customer service skills.