Training for Career Guides- YNTUC

Training for Career Guides and Career Mentors   

 “How might we equip career guides to have meaningful career conversations with their mentees at work?” 

Client/ Partner: 

Young NTUC 

Domain: 

• Career Mentoring 

Service: 

• Workshop Design and Facilitation 

• Bold-designed learning journal 

The Process:

An initiative by Young NTUC, the Youth Career Network is a support network consisting of volunteer career coaches and career guides, who come together to support graduating students and first job seekers in navigating their careers. As part of the NTUC Youth Taskforce Report, they highlighted career mentorship with industry mentors as the top most important resource that youths sought to support their careers and progression at the workplace. YNTUC wanted to equip their career guides with a conversation framework and skills, so as help them understand the evolving generational mindsets and attitudes new entrants to the workforce might have and issues they may face, so they can be confident in guiding their mentees. 

We designed a skills workshop, with the aim of helping them through three key stages of i) establishing rapport and trust with mentees, ii) supporting mentees in decision-making and iii) supporting mentees in ideating new possibilities. Through practice circles, career guides came away with a better understanding of their own mentoring styles and also greater confidence in navigating career conversations, with awareness of the common tensions that are likely to come up for mentees.   

As a supporting tool, we also developed a career journal, that could serve as a basis for further conversation between the mentor and mentee. The journal was designed to help the career guide scope conversations in a meaningful way, so that they could maximise every opportunity they had with their mentees.