How to become a mentor Flashcards
For a first time mentor, how do you find a mentee? To the mentors on the panel, how did you gain your first mentee?
I think these are questions for when you’re looking at mentorship as a more formal relationship.
How? To start informal mentoring all you basically need to do is to offer help to someone who seems like they could use it, and they might take you up on it.
Until I was paid specifically to mentor students in our program, all the mentoring I did was informal. At first, it was co-op students in and around the lab I helped run, and new recruits at my company who I noticed could use some help orienting themselves. Later it was more of a word-of-mouth relationship where a friend would put someone they knew in touch with me because they were looking to make a similar career change, and hoped I’d be open to talking with them over coffee.
How many do you work with at a time? Do you cycle through them over time, or maintain one or a few over a long period?
I do tend to cycle through over time (at least people I keep in touch with more frequently), more because it naturally comes to a bit of a conclusion once they reach their goal… But I do always try to keep in touch at least every once in a while, even if it’s evolved to be not really a mentoring relationship anymore.
How does one know they are ready to become a mentor?
Asking yourself this question might be making too big a deal of it - the question is more: Do you have experience and knowledge that might be useful to someone else just learning or starting on the same path? And are you ready to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes? If so, then you are ready to be a mentor. If there is someone you keep in touch with periodically who finds your experiences and advice useful, then you may already be a mentor and not have known it!
