SwirlyRaccoon

Mentorship | Experience vs Skills

Which one matters: Skills or Experience?

Experience, and further the insights comes with multiple 'years of experience' only. On the other hand, 'skills' can be learnt.

Who would you give preference to? I've been naive enough to think that what people with 10-20+ yoe is something that I can easily do. But nope, decision making is a completely different ball game.

I got this thought when I came across youngsters charging money for 'mentorship' (PS: one off sessions, especially paid, is not how mentor-mentee relationship works).

If folks without proper experience is mentoring, what exactly are they sharing?

How to get to where they are? What would it take for anyone to get somewhere further ahead (where they themselves haven't been)? Just some 'skills' that mentees should get upskilled on?

Skills are required, but so is experience as well. As they say, it's not the tool but you use it that makes the difference!

So yes, what exactly are these young 'top mentors' talking about (or preching)?

Nuances: yes, one can talk about everything that they have gone through up until then. But in this case, everything would be short term and not really helpful.

One off sessions may work if it's just a Q&A or an AMA session. But that's not mentorship.

Yes, time is money, and it's fine to charge for it. But is it really that they're valuing their time more, or the money?

I have no hate against platforms like Topmate. As a platform, they're good. It's just how we make use of it that is not great.

[I do mentor people. I just mentor 3-4 people, and has been doing that since 3-4 years). I have a few mentors as well. That has been going on since last 6+ years. None of those are paid. It's mutual respect and truly supporting others in their journey.

I occasionally do the 'AMA or Q&A sessions + resume review as well'. Again free, but not under the disguise of 'mentorship'

9mo ago

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JumpyUnicorn

Loco9mo

Really I don’t understand the meaning of skill without real work been done.

If skill is just learning, then anyone can learn from videos/books can tell they have skill and mentor.

But the real things comes only by executing which will get horned by working, working and only working which brings experience.

For me, you become skilled with experience ie real work or you get experience with your skills like doing same thing again and again and become an expert.

DancingPretzel

Stealth9mo

I am in the same boat as you on this. Been mentoring around two to three people. Have a couple of mentors as well. I see that as a two way street. I learn as much as they learn from me. In that case I see no point in charging either side. Its not like somebody comes up to me and asks can you be my mentor and I say yes. Most of the time there is no real handshake or time commitment. They just lookup to someone like how I looked up to others. And not every relationship worked. With so called paid mentorship I am not sure how far genuine it will be. For example sometimes i get had to digest inputs, my mentors have called me out on certain occasions and I have not held back in giving hard to digest facts to my mentees. With money involved I dont know if the relationship will be truthful.