Our Wiseup platform provides a fantastic opportunity for people over 18 to connect to a network of potential Mentors across an ever-growing range of professions and industries.
A Mentee can browse the experience and services of our Mentors and select the person who they feel can positively influence the progression of their career, or help them start and grow their business.
The advice given is always bespoke, which is an important stride away from the generic advice that is so common on the Internet and within companies or universities. We want to give people the opportunity to connect with the best possible Mentor without having to have any pre-existing ties to one another.
Mentors are professionals or entrepreneurs that wish to inspire others by offering a range of career & business advice services to Mentees. Many of our Mentors understand the difficulty of not having the contacts or resources to obtain the advice they need at an earlier time in their life. Their enthusiasm is what drives the Wiseup vision.
We are always open to new professionals or entrepreneurs who want to share their experiences and provide advice. If you want to join our community please sign up as a Mentor and submit a short, free application.
It was May 2014 and my second year History degree exams at The University of Sheffield were on the horizon. Aside from talk of revision notes and mindmaps, the question bouncing around was “what are you doing when you graduate?” I had no idea – which didn’t help with the exam stress!
That summer I spent my time talking to as many people as possible, searching for an epiphany moment. One conversation gave me the guidance I needed. Little did I know, a friend’s advice that I would suit a project management role, would shape the next 4 years of my life. I committed to finding trainee roles in that area, which led to a short career as a Project Manager at Xerox and then BT.
Over that time I would run into personal and professional challenges and turn to the same solution; talk to people. Family, friends, colleagues, senior management – trying to find the right person at the right time. My Dad, Graham, was always the first port of call.
It was then Christmas time in 2018. Sat around the dinner table, chatting about my career with Graham over a beer. Upon reflection, it became clear that all of the brilliant people I had met through my journey were ‘mentors’. We had talked for a few years about how we could help other people using our joint professional networks. It was then we had the idea of an online mentoring marketplace.
That conversation set off a chain of events: designing, building and implementing this very platform. We have dedicated our time to present excellent career and business mentors to the world, in a modern, tech-enabled fashion. Rather than waiting to bump into the right person, we want people to take advantage of this connected world and choose that specific person themselves.
71% of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs (Centre for Workplace Leadership 2016). The value of mentoring is globally understood but access to it is often based on chance or company and institution membership. Not at Wiseup. Your mentor is just a few clicks away, and your future is a few conversations away.
Joe Wood, Co-Founder of Wiseup
As Wiseup grows, we aim for this to become the most recognised mentoring platform and professional network in the UK, Europe and eventually, globally.
The more the platform expands, the more we are able to drive down the cost of our services, and open them up to those without disposable income to invest in their careers or businesses. Working with The Prince’s Trust and other supportive bodies we will strive to make our services available to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
