COREFour Mentoring Skills
Develop these skills at Wake Forest.
Apply them to your life & career after college.
College provides the opportunity to learn and practice key skill sets that you will use throughout your life and career beyond Wake Forest.
That’s why we created the COREFour Mentoring Skills: four skill areas that every Wake Forest student should develop and eventually be able to apply to their lives after college.
We believe that the COREFour are integral life skills for engaging in mentoring relationships and being successful in your post-college career. In fact, McKinsey & Company published an article, Defining the skills citizens will need in the future of work, in which they share key skill sets that result in positive outcomes for employees in the world of work. Their findings demonstrate that our COREFour skills are more important than ever for college students to be career ready after graduation.
Students: Start developing these skills now! One easy place to start is with our LinkedIn Learning Pathway for the COREFour. Click here to get started!
Faculty and Staff: There are many opportunities to incorporate the COREFour Mentoring Skills into your students’ learning moments. We’ve created this guide to provide direction as you support students in developing these skills.
Personal and professional relationships are key to your success. We all need people to support us. Here are some practical actions you can take to build relationships:
- Identify one person to build a relationship with this semester.
- Read Your Network Should be “Weak” and map your network.
For more tips and strategies, download this best practice guide for building relationships:
Building relationships – with peers, mentors, colleagues, managers, industry leaders – is a key skill for you to hone during your time at Wake Forest. Check out this short webinar for tips and strategies on how to build effective relationships in your life and career.
Knowing how to build relationships with potential employers is key to growing your professional network. Why? Because 80%+ of jobs (or internships) are landed through people you know and not from blindly applying online. This blog post from Handshake explains why It’s All About Who You Know, and shares best practices for using relationships and referrals to secure a job or internship.
You’ve probably heard that a LinkedIn profile is basically your resume in an online format, right? It’s the first place that recruiters, employers, and even networking connections search for you by name. We love this advice from Wake Forest alumnus Austin Belcak (‘13), Founder of Cultivated Culture and former employee at Microsoft and Forbes, on how to build an amazing LinkedIn profile! Make an appointment with an OPCD career coach to have your LinkedIn profile reviewed and to discuss how to leverage LinkedIn to build your network and make connections.
Having a strong network of connections really does open doors to future opportunities – such as landing an internship or job, finding a roommate or rental housing, getting into your dream graduate school. Why not start cultivating connections within the Wake Forest community? Get started by identifying and reaching out to a connection here on campus or on LinkedIn (try searching for WFU alumni) for an informational interview or networking conversation. Building relationships and connections really does start one conversation at a time. Need some extra encouragement? Check out this video from senior Adelaide Brown (‘23) on how taking chances can lead to meaningful networking conversations.
Goals provide direction and a plan to get there. Put this into practice by doing the following:
- Set one goal for yourself for this semester.
- Watch the webinar, Hope is Not a Plan: Setting Goals the Right Way.
For more tips and strategies, download this best practice guide for setting goals:
We all want confidence and clarity around the decisions we make, big or small. Whether you’re choosing a major/minor, figuring out your future career plans, or going after that dream internship, knowing how to Set Goals and take action towards achieving them is a key skill for you to hone during your time at Wake Forest. Check out this short webinar for tips and strategies around goal-setting and why this skill will help you be successful in your life and career after Wake.
Did you know that your ability to set goals and take action steps to achieve them results in a higher likelihood of employment, higher income, and future job satisfaction? In a recently published article from McKinsey & Company about skills needed in the future of work, being able to set goals was at the top of the list. Start putting this into practice by setting one goal for yourself this semester: What is one thing you want to accomplish and what steps do you need to take to make this happen? Check out this LinkedIn Learning video on How to Set Goals When Everything Feels Like a Priority to help you think through possible goals.
Do you ever feel stuck, overwhelmed, and/or unmotivated? One of the best ways to get unstuck is to set some concrete goals and action items to propel you forward AND to find an accountability partner to share them with. Accountability can come in the form of conversations with a friend, advisor, counselor, mentor, professor, or family member. Who are your people? Identify one person who you can talk to about personal or career goals and ask them to keep you accountable on taking the steps to achieve them. Download this best practice guide for setting goals to help you get unstuck and, instead, gain clarity and focus.
Setting Goals and taking action steps to achieve them is a key skill for being Career Ready. The OPCD has already put together specific goals and steps for you to take around 7 key areas! Learn more about the Ready7 here and take action on just one of the steps listed, depending on where you’re at in the career process. Then, go talk to an OPCD career coach about how you can keep moving forward.
Feedback provides critical insight into your strengths and growth areas. You can practice seeking out and receiving feedback from others by:
- Ask one person for feedback on the goal you have set.
- Practice listening, not responding, to feedback.
For more tips and strategies, download this best practice guide for seeking feedback:
You get feedback on a regular basis, whether you realize it or not! It comes from class grades and comments on assignments from your professors. It comes in the form of advice or suggestions from an academic advisor or student leader in one of your organizations, or maybe from a supervisor at a job or internship. But guess what? You don’t have to passively wait to receive feedback! Your ability to actively Seek Feedback is a key skill to develop during your time at Wake Forest. Check out our short, 10-minute webinar for quick tools and strategies to practice asking for the feedback you need rather than waiting for feedback to come to you.
Putting yourself out there to ask someone for feedback can feel scary. What if you hear something critical? Or what if the feedback isn’t what you expected? Learning to ask the right questions and to listen with an open mind takes practice! Thankfully, college is a great place to do this – with your professors, staff members, alumni, mentors, and your peers. We love this advice from Courtney Ewing (‘21) on how she practiced seeking and receiving feedback during her time at Wake.
Your family and friends who know you well can serve as good sources of feedback. Identify a few people whose opinions matter to you and ask them these two questions:
1. What are 2-3 things that you think that I do particularly well?
2. What are 1-2 areas of growth and improvement for me?
Practice actively listening to what is being said to and about you, ask for clarity as needed, and reflect on what you’ll do with that information. Then, ask these two questions to any trusted advisers, mentors, or professors to keep practicing feedback!
Did you know that your ability to seek feedback and then implement that feedback to do things differently next time results in a higher likelihood of employment, higher income, and future job satisfaction? McKinsey & Company found that feedback is a key skill needed in the future of work. Being able to seek feedback requires humility, critical thinking, curiosity, and relationship building skills as well, to name a few. Your ability to hone the COREFour Mentoring Skills during your time in college will make you more successful in your life and career after Wake – plus, they’re skills that employers will expect you to show up with at work. Download this best practice guide to seeking feedback for more tips and strategies.
Reflection is how you learn from your past and move forward in the future. To practice reflecting on your experiences, try the following:
- Make a list of what you’ve learned about yourself this year.
- Read Ask for What You Need and have one feedback conversation.
For more tips and strategies, download this best practice guide to practicing reflection:
Semesters often fly by in a blur. But as each semester ends and the dust settles after final exams, give yourself the gift of reflecting on what just happened and what you learned. We love this wisdom from Victoria Parker (‘21) on how reflecting on her experiences at Wake Forest helped her develop more confidence as a student and soon-to-be graduate. Practicing reflection isn’t just a skill to use in college but will be something you’ll utilize throughout your career to learn from your experiences and determine your next steps. Check out our short, 10-minute webinar for more tips and strategies on how to implement reflective practices into your daily life.
One simple way to practice reflection is to ask yourself these questions at the end of a project, assignment, internship, or academic semester:
What? What did you experience/what happened?
So what? How do you feel about what you experienced and what are you learning from it?
Now what? What will you do with what you learned?
You can apply these questions to any experience – a class, being a student organization leader, a job or internship, studying abroad, etc. Download our guide to practicing reflection to help you consider lessons learned during your college experience and how you want to apply them to the future.