Mentor lends a helping hand

It was one of those rare moments when everything felt right.

"I think you've made the right decision," the executive told me during our first meeting, after I had asked her opinion about the value of an MBA.

"I often wish I had more formal business education."

I felt a sense of comfort sitting in her office. I could see myself working in a similar position one day and, as our conversation progressed, I felt more and more confident in my decision to quit my full-time job at The Globe and Mail to get an MBA.

I owe the meeting to one of the most valuable campus services available to business students: the mentorship program.

Graduate schools, MBA programs in particular, are known to offer top-notch support services to their students.

Virtually every school has a career-services centre that acts as a broker between student and corporate recruiters; a peer-support and tutoring program that helps students with campus life, writing papers and preparing for exams; and a student government that represents students on academic issues, co-ordinates extra-curricular groups and organizes social events.

And since the end goal of every business student is to secure a job after graduation, the mission of most campus services tends to be helping students land that dream gig.

The same goes for the mentorship program, which matches students with executives and industry professionals to gain a firsthand perspective on corporate life, get answers to questions about a given field and expand both parties' personal network of contacts.

It offers students the chance to talk to real people about real issues out there in the real world.

Mentorship programs aren't valuable just for business students eager to venture into the workplace.

A formal mentorship program that connects a senior and junior employee not only assists the protégé with day-to-day duties and specific work-related issues.

It also helps educate on office policies and politics, positioning for career success and makes employees feel that there's somebody on their side, boosting morale and productivity.

It's comforting to know someone senior is only an interoffice phone call away.

While a boss-employee connection is the most common kind, people can find all sorts of mentors, from colleagues to industry peers -- even reverse mentors, where a junior person coaches a more senior staffer, helping them glean information on what turns the younger generation's crank or how to use technology.

For a business student, there's nothing like having a mentor in the field you're hoping to pursue.

My mentor is a programming executive with a national TV network -- ultimately responsible for all the content on numerous channels.

We were matched up by a professor in my school's business program, who had actually acted as a mentor to my mentor earlier in their careers.

After brief introductions, I peppered her with a list of questions on the current state of the media industry, the challenges managers face not only in her field but in all of business nowadays, and on the "traditional" career path of broadcasting executives in Canada.

That's when she said very few media management positions are occupied by MBAs -- but that doesn't mean I should be dissuaded from embarking on a career in the field.

I felt a sense of relief after receiving conflicting opinions for months from those in the industry.

Some feel that it's better to learn about media by doing, not by studying. Others, like my mentor, believe that the industry has changed significantly in recent years, and that professional managers with solid business and media experience are in high demand.

She went on to explain her key management philosophy: Surround yourself with talented people with whom you work well and trust -- and once you find those people, hang on to them.

We also discussed my and my friends' TV viewing habits and our preferred content. Call it unintentional reverse mentoring.

Before I knew it, 45 minutes had gone by and our conversation was being interrupted by her assistant to remind her of an important conference call taking place in less than five minutes.

Thankfully, we hit it off. Going into the mentorship program, I had feared that the meetings would be awkward, uncomfortable and much too formal for my liking.

In fact, it was the opposite. My mentor was willing to answer all of my questions, helping me learn inside industry information that I'm sure I will use in my job hunt and possibly throughout my career.

"Sorry we couldn't talk longer but let's do this again some time soon," she said, shaking my hand then walking me to the door.

The very next day I called to set up another meeting -- and I've already started to prepare another list of questions.

Richard Bloom is a former Report on Business writer who has enrolled in York University's Schulich School of Business to obtain an MBA. He will write regularly on the career lessons he is taking away from the classroom.