No matter what stage of your career you are in – fresh out of college or a seasoned professional, a mentor can always help guide you to a more successful career. The hardest part is choosing the right mentor who has experience that will help you in your future career path. There are many big companies who have invested in mentorship programs to help young professionals for various reasons.

It Helps Mentees Build Skills

Intel, one of the world’s largest chip makers, matches people with their mentors based on the skills that are in demand at any given time. This helps professionals improve their skills and work with people who possess those same skills. The mentorship program at Intel helps ease the passing of information and talent from one generation to another in order to continue to grow the company. This is one of the more tailored internship programs, because the process looks at skills rather than time of experience in order to match mentors to mentees.

They Gain Real-World Experience

Google, one of the world’s leading technology companies, hosts a Summer of Code, which is a global program that offers students stipends to write code for open-source software project. This program gives students the opportunity to work with mentors to give them real-world software development experience along with a chance to earn a job in an area they are interested in working in. This is one of the most successful internship/mentorship programs (watch The Intern with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn for a comedic look at this internship program).

Helps Mentors Perfect Skills

Time Warner Cable offers a mentorship program that helps both mentors and mentees build skill sets and increase knowledge of the industry, job and professional setting. This mentorship program benefits everyone and helps increase loyalty to the company and improves employee satisfaction helping to retain top employees. Mentees can move throughout the company to find the niche that works for them. Mentors can also learn from the mentees and how this new generation works.

Encourages Career Development

Liberty Mutual offers a great career development mentorship program for new graduates and early career professionals. This mentorship program involves senior managers being paired with entry-level workers to help guide tasks and assignments and to provide leadership training and coaching. Helping new graduates learn the ropes at the company will establish loyalty to the brand simply because these young professionals began their career path there. This is why Liberty Mutual developed this program and why it continues to be so successful.

Why Mentorships Matter

Young professionals are taking over the job market and need guidance from seasoned professionals in order to find their way the career path they want. Big companies are recognizing that mentorship programs pay off in more ways than one, such as gaining new talented employees, improving loyalty to the company and helping connect professionals in a new way. As younger workers swoop in, they will need the leadership from mentors to navigate their way to success.

Companies are also realizing that coaching and mentoring is why the most successful sports franchising have winning records. Applying this to the workplace is a must for sustainable, long-term results in the most changing business climate ever.