Making the most of a mentor

A mentor can help you make the most of career opportunities and aid your personal development. Today programme studio director Rachel Wheeley was able to see a clearer path to working in another area of radio with help from Caroline Raphael, then a commissioner at Radio 4. In this podcast they emphasise that it’s the mentee who needs to put in the hard work. “It’s not an easy option. You do have to work quite hard. It’s not all tea and sympathy,” says Caroline. Mentoring is not a quick fix. It’s a chance to stand back and reassess your career, in search of the best direction to take. Caroline, who runs independent radio production company Dora Productions and is editorial director of Penguin Random House Audio, describes it as “letting you see a bird’s-eye view - how the organisation fits together… that’s quite difficult to do unless you have some support”. Media and leadership trainer Natasha Maw, a partner at Quattrain and founding member of Sound Women, explains how to find a mentor to advise on everything from how to reach your goals to building confidence in your abilities. Rachel is also a producer at BBC Radio Comedy and is to launch the science comedy podcast Level Up Human very soon.