Mentern
![Mentern](https://michaelfeeleylifecoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Depositphotos_421228034_L.jpg-People-talking-.jpg-1170-x-780.jpg)
by Michael Feeley
The positive and pleasing idea of ‘menterns’ comes up in career coaching. Entrepreneur and hotelier Chip Conley first created the concept of a Mentern – a person who combines mentoring and interning.
A mentern plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between Baby Boomers and Millennials. Typically, a seasoned business professional over 50 shares their life experiences, skills, credentials, and knowledge with others in the workplace, while also being open to learning new things. This unique blend of mentoring and interning, as embodied by a mentern, is a powerful tool in fostering understanding and collaboration across generations.
This idea is crucial to understand when coaching people on job interviews where you prepare by covering specific, expected standards, procedures, and questions that take place in an interview, and you must also be spontaneous and open to the unknown as you meet new people and learn about your possible future job.
It includes understanding the six sets of people in the workforce today where menterning is present:
1. Modern sages born before or around 1945
2. Baby Boomers 1945 – 1964
3. Generation X 1965 – 1980
4. Gen Y’s 1981 – 1995
5. Gen Z 1996 – 2009
6. Generation Alpha 2010 – 2024
Each generation has different work experience, expectations, technological knowledge, and communication styles. As the six generations connect and work together, there can be clashes.
As you interview, you will most likely meet with people from different generations who may have some preconceptions of you if you’re a mature person. I mention this because ageism is a vital subject, and you should be aware of what you may surprisingly encounter in interviews so you can adjust your approach and tactics and hope to connect with everyone in the best way possible as you look for work.
It’s important to remember that interviews are not just assessments, but also conversations. Regardless of the group of people you are meeting with, you have valuable insights to offer, things you can learn, and important, curious questions to ask. It’s also an opportunity for you to assess if a specific company and its people align with your values and goals.
It’s essential to know the strategy of the job-searching game you’re part of and to take advantage of the fact that the internet makes your career search comprehensive and open 24/7 with locations and possibilities worldwide.
The choice for goodwill, as you meet people, connects our differences and helps us see how much our questions, ambitions, and dreams are pretty much the same at any time or age.
Thanks – Michael (he, him)
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This is also important – Tell People about Your Superpower.
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