The impact of CITMA Mentoring one year on
To celebrate National Mentoring Day, two members share how CITMA Mentoring helped them develop in their careers, following its launch a year ago.
CITMA Mentoring is an online platform, designed to directly connect you with other practitioners working within the IP profession. Hannah Colton, a CITMA Paralegal, and Amelia Skelding, a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney, highlight the importance of forging good mentoring relationships in their accounts of the platform.
A sophisticated matching service
Having first heard about CITMA Mentoring back in 2023 while attending the CITMA Paralegal Conference, Hannah decided to sign up to find a mentor, saying, “It was pretty easy navigating the platform, and I have been able to communicate with my mentor via email or calls on Teams.”
Designed to provide a space for members to share experiences and learn from each other, CITMA Mentoring can support both personal and professional growth.
When you first join the scheme, you’ll have the opportunity to build your profile and specify the areas you’re most interested in discussing. From there, an initial match is provided, making it easy to find and manage your mentoring relationships.
Being very happy with her match, this element of the service was a highlight for Hannah. She said, “The options of mentors were narrowed down by the requirements I had specified, and being able to research into the mentors was very helpful.”
Support across a range of areas
Hannah has since benefitted from monthly Teams calls with her mentor for the last six months, as well as meeting up at CITMA events. Going forwards, they continue to be in touch, with Hannah adding, “She [her mentor] has been fantastic at providing advice in a wide range of issues.”
You can opt to become both a mentor and mentee if you wish, enabling you to meet different objectives that are important to you. Having played both roles herself, Amelia has found this particularly beneficial in her journey using CITMA Mentoring, “I find it helpful to get input from senior practitioners, but I also learn a lot from my mentees when my role is reversed.”
When it came to choosing a mentor, Amelia described the platform as “user-friendly” and, like Hannah, found the variety of options conducive to creating a successful match. She said, “I am very happy with the mentor I was matched with because they were able to assist with all the points I wanted insight on, in a clear and structured way.”
Resources and tools for all levels
Whether you want to develop your communications skills, expand your professional network, or use your experience to support a junior colleague, there are a wealth of resources and tools available on the platform to help you along the way.
Speaking about her monthly mentoring sessions, held on Teams, Amelia said, “The materials were really useful in structuring the sessions,” adding, “I also found that selecting the topics I was interested in was a good way to initiate conversation and provide direction to the discussions.”
Whether you’re just starting out or have been working in the industry for years, Amelia believes everyone can benefit from the scheme, and would highly recommend it to other members. She said, “It’s been a very positive experience, which has provided me with helpful career advice. I would encourage people to sign up irrespective of what stage they are at in their career – mentees and mentors are helpful at all experience levels.”
If you’re interested in knowing more about the scheme or would like to sign up, visit the CITMA Mentoring page here.