The Intermediary – October 2026 - Flipbook - Page 86
B RO K E R B U S I N E S S
Opinion
Mentoring is for
here is a tendency to
think about mentoring
as something designed
primarily for people at
the beginning of their
careers. Find someone
older and wiser, ask them how they
got where they are and hopefully avoid
a few of the mistakes they made along
the way. There is certainly value in
that approach, but mentoring can be
much broader than simply helping
the next generation climb the career
ladder.
A good mentoring relationship gives
you access to a different perspective.
That can be valuable, whether you
have been working in mortgages for
two years or 20, whether you are
employed by a large organisation or
running a brokerage on your own,
whether you are looking for your next
promotion or simply trying to become
beer at what you already do.
We heard some great examples of
this at a recent Working in Mortgages
discussion on mentoring. One adviser
spoke about the value of having
someone completely independent to
talk to when deciding whether to move
from employed to self-employed.
Another described the isolation of
running his own business, and how
useful it was to have a trusted person
who could challenge his thinking as
well as offer encouragement.
Neither needed someone to tell
them how to do their job – what they
needed was someone outside their
immediate working environment
who would listen, ask questions
and sometimes make them look at a
situation differently.
It’s an important distinction
to make: a mentor is not there to
provide all the answers, nor should
mentoring be confused with training,
management or recruitment.
At its best, mentoring gives people
space to think. Sometimes that might
be about a big career decision, but it
may also be about increasing your
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The Intermediary | October 2026
confidence, dealing with a difficult
situation or working out what you
actually want from the next few
years. Sometimes a relatively short
conversation with someone who sees
things differently can be enough to
help you find your own answer to a
problem, or guide your response to
an opportunity.
Something to offer
We also need to challenge the
assumption that mentors must be
senior industry veterans with decades
of experience behind them. Of course,
experience is enormously valuable
and we are fortunate to have many
people across the mortgage market
willing to share theirs. But you do
not need to have reached the top
of an organisation before you have
something useful to offer somebody
else.
You may have specialist knowledge,
experience of a particular career path,
or skills that another person wants
to develop. You might understand
technology beer than somebody who
has been in the industry twice as long
as you have, or have recent experience
of making a career change, returning
to work or navigating a challenge they
are only just encountering.
We can sometimes be surprisingly
poor judges of the value of our own
experience. If something has become
second nature to you, it is easy to
assume everybody else knows it, too.
The reality is that they probably don’t.
Mentoring also does not necessarily
need to be entirely one-way. In fact,
mentors frequently tell us how much
they gain from the relationship
themselves. It can expose them to
different experiences and perspectives,
sharpen coaching and listening
skills and give them a much beer
understanding of the challenges faced
by people working elsewhere in our
industry.
Working in Mortgages launched
its free cross-industry mentoring
ALISON PAINTER
is business development
manager at TSB and mentoring
programme champion at
Working In Mortgages
programme in 2023, and there are
now 483 people registered on the
platform, with 333 signed up as
mentees and 239 as mentors.
One of its strengths is that it
allows people to look beyond their
own organisation and immediate
professional circle. The person who
can help you most may not work for
the same type of business as you. An
adviser may have a great deal to learn
from somebody working for a lender,
and vice versa.
We are continuing to develop the
Working in Mortgages mentoring
platform to help people make valuable
connections more easily. Users can
identify the skills, expertise and lived
experiences that are relevant to them,
covering everything from career
stage and educational background
to neurodiversity, returning aer
parental leave and socio-economic
background.
It isn’t quite online dating for
the mortgage industry, but there
is something to be said for making
it easier to find someone whose
experience and outlook feel like a good
fit. The mentee remains in control
of that choice, and if the first person
you approach isn’t available, or a
mentoring relationship doesn’t quite
click, that doesn’t mean mentoring
