City Club

What mentoring can do for your career

two men walking through workplace office

Jacinta Costanzo

Posted October 20, 2022

Advance your career and widen your professional networks as a mentor or mentee. Here’s why joining a mentoring program can help your career journey and progression.

The pandemic period has been disruptive to traditional paths of career progression. In the past few years, face-to-face interactions were relegated to behind a screen, limiting the development of organic professional relationships and socialising. Now, with workers returning to offices and workplaces with more regularity, it’s a great time to prioritise career development and enrichment.

Mentoring programs are a great way to meet like-minded individuals and professionals outside the confines of the workplace, and at different stages of the traditional career arc. It’s one of the many reasons people join clubs, empowering those involved to meet other professionals they typically wouldn’t cross paths with.

Best of all, the relationship between mentors and mentees participating in a mentoring program is mutually beneficial. While the mentee may be at the start of their working life and looking for career guidance, the mentor has an opportunity to reflect on their previous professional experiences, share knowledge and gain exposure to new perspectives.

RACV Club Membership gives you a whole new world of exclusive activities and benefits, including access to an exclusive Mentoring Program.

Sharing new career perspectives

RACV Club’s 14-week Mentoring Program provides Members with the opportunity to connect, and share career insights and knowledge.

The diverse group of mentoring program participants means individuals come from a range of industries and professional experiences, something the Club is fortunate to have, says RACV Club Events Manager Melissa McCallum.

“[RACV Club] has Members that have had really diverse and interesting career paths and they often acts as our mentors," McCallum explains. “Then we have a younger cohort of Members who are just discovering what their career pathway looks like.”

Learning from experienced professionals

RACV Club Member Edward Lavender recently joined the Club Mentoring Program as a mentee. Lavender's goal when joining the mentor program was to be paired with an experienced professional he could confide in.

Lavender highlights the “refreshing” feeling to gaining new perspectives on things from his mentor during the program. “Looking at things from a new angle” has been of great benefit to Lavender in his career at global bank HSBC.

RACV Club Member Carla Santalucia has enjoyed the benefits of joining the program as a mentee for her career as a junior family lawyer.

Santalucia advises prospective mentoring program participants to contemplate what they’d like to learn and achieve before joining. “You need to know what you want to get out of it, or at least have some idea and your mentor can guide you,” she says.

Promote self-reflection and share insights

For mentors, mentoring programs provide a sense of satisfaction from knowing that they’ve genuinely guided someone with their career arc - an increasingly complex journey to navigate.

In addition, mentors can learn from their mentees and gain new perspectives.

Recognising “it’s not a one-way learning process,” Club Member and mentor Russell Hocking says he has learnt as much from his mentee, Carla Santalucia, as she did from him. Their connection has enabled Hocking to bring new professional insights back to his planning consulting business.

Those involved in the RACV Club Mentoring Program are encouraged to utilise complimentary Club facilities to foster their professional relationship. As part of the membership, the Club provides access to vibrant coworking spaces, bookable meeting rooms and an onsite café.

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