Five Ways Mentoring Can Benefit Your Own Career

It’s no secret that encouragement from a mentor can be critical to success, particularly for early-career STEM professionals. But what’s in it for the mentor? We posed this question to a few of the scientists participating in the Academy's Member-to-Member Mentoring program, and here's what they had to say:

1) Mentoring helps you become a more effective leader.
“My mentoring experience helped me develop my own leadership skills which I use to advise, coach, and develop my current staff.” – Paul-André Genest, PhD, Senior Publishing Editor at Wiley and Adjunct Professor at Stanford University

2) Think your experiences are ordinary? Think again!
“Participating in the Member-to-Member Mentoring program taught me that my experiences, no matter how ordinary they may seem to me, can be helpful to young people coming up in my profession.” – Katie Slade, VMD, Emergency Doctor at the Veterinary Specialty Center of Delaware

3) Mentoring hones your transferable skill-set.
“I am happy that I could contribute to my mentee’s goals as an academician. Her expertise was somewhat familiar to me, but not completely. However, we managed to work together on general principles and I feel we succeeded. This program has further taught me how to accommodate others’ ways of thinking and working.” – Mirjana Maletic-Savatic, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine

4) Mentoring gets you out of your comfort zone (and that’s a good thing).
“I learned how to assist somebody beyond academia and give advice on future work perspectives. This gives you the chance to get out of your comfort zone and use your expertise in other areas. The main skill I improved was listening. Listening and giving advice beyond instructing is key.” – Santiago Sole Domenech, PhD, Research Associate, Maxfield Lab and Leon Levy Research Fellow, Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, both at Weill Cornell Medicine

5) The rewards of a mentoring partnership flow both ways.
“I learned that I don't have to be in the exact same discipline or area of science to be helpful to the mentee and I also learned that mentees have a lot to offer the mentor—it is a two way street.” – Gwendolyn Quinn, Vice Chair of Research and Professor (OB-GYN) at NYU School of Medicine

Ready to see what this whole mentoring thing is all about? Sign up to mentor a fellow Academy Member today!