CILIPS Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland
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CILIPS Job Shadowing and Career Mentoring schemes

Category: Blog, News, Professional Development

The CILIPS Job Shadowing / Career Mentoring logo with white text and a silhouette showing people celebrating after having climbed to the top of a mountain

Last year, one of the student members of the CILIPS team, Dr Laura Gormley, carried out a piece of research into the needs of new professionals. One of her report recommendations was for ‘CILIPS to consider whether a mentoring scheme, outwith that of chartership, would add value to the student and new professional experience’.

Having reviewed this, CILIPS have decided to look at introducing a form of job shadowing/career mentoring scheme: open to all members, including new professionals.

We recently invited members to put themselves forward as mentors and have a growing list of volunteers. We are now opening up the scheme for CILIPS members to apply to be mentees.

Career Mentoring scheme

A career mentor may help with exploring careers, setting goals, developing contacts, and identifying resources. This is separate from the mentor scheme connected to CILIP Professional Registration and it will be up to the career mentor and the mentee to set out how their mentoring sessions will operate within agreed time boundaries. As part of this, CILIPS will provide guidance on how the relationship should operate, as well as checklists and confidentiality agreements before you start.

If you would like to find a career mentorthe first step is to fill in this form. We will then send you our list of career mentors and other additional guidance in the next few weeks

If you would like to be a career mentoryou can apply here and we will get back to you with more information. Whilst members at any stage can offer to be career mentors, this opportunity may be better suited to members with a few years’ professional experience.

Job Shadowing scheme

This will be useful to members who are keen to move sectors, for new professionals trying to find their chosen sector, and for all members undertaking Professional Registration. The shadowing can be as little as a couple of hours, either in person or online, or can be for a longer spell if required. Please note that we currently have a limited number of people offering job shadowing, so it may take longer to match you with someone to shadow.

If you would like to find someone to job shadowthe first step is to fill in this form. We will then send you the list of options and other additional guidance in the next few weeks.

If you would like to offer job shadowingyou can apply here and we will get back to you with more information.

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