Recently I have signed up with the alumni organisation of “my” university to participate in their mentoring program for students at the verge of work life. Mentoring – I have done that before and my former mentee is now a good friend of mine.

Let me reflect about what mentoring is and what an effective approach may look like.

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What is mentoring?

In the Internet I found this definition of the Alberta Learning Information Service ALIS that resonates with me:

«Mentors are experienced, trusted advisors or counsellors who have successful careers and proven track records. Mentors are not usually paid for their services.

As a mentor, your role will be to:

• make a commitment to support and encourage your mentee
• encourage your mentee to develop careers that reflect their skills, potential and goals
• offer wisdom, knowledge, experience, constructive criticism, connections and resources
• focus on the overall career directions like advancement and training rather than on day-to-day concerns of your mentee
• set an example for the level of professional conduct and success your mentee hopes to achieve»

In alignment with this definition and with my previous mentoring experience I understand that…

• The mentor accompanies the overall career development of his mentee in a one to one setup independent of the current work place. He acts as a sparring partner bringing in his long year experience, with the target to help the mentee find a career path that matches his/her strengths and interests. The relationship is based on mutual trust and confidentiality. The time horizon is longer term and can be several years.
• Mentoring is different from coaching. I understand that a coach accompanies an employee at his/her work place – to perform efficiently and effectively according to his potential.

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How would I conceive our mentoring process to be effective?

To mentor a student at the verge of work life, I think of these steps for the process to be satisfactory and effective. 

• Basis: Initiative is with Mentee / Mentor is a responsive sparring partner
  From the mentee, I expect that he/she will drive the relationship, invite for meetings and/or ask for support, when he is ready or needs it. As a mentor, I will be the responsive (reachable) and  supportive sparring partner bringing in my experience and network. The mentee has to solve his “problem” and he can count on my mentor support. As a mentor, I cannot impose my ideas, I just give suggestions, hopefully good suggestions based on my experience.
• Align mentor and mentee / revise relation: Trust and commitment
  As a first step, we, the mentor and the mentee will get to know one another, exchange about our motivations and backgrounds and find alignment. The target is to build trust. Trust is indispensable for our mentor/mentee relationship. Without trust it is not possible to proceed and achieve results. Based on trust, we make the commitment to start our mentor/mentee relationship. This relationship is not expected to be short term, and hence it is also necessary to revise it from time to time to verify trust and commitment still exist.
• Identify mentee strengths/interests/personality: Profile
  As a second step, the mentee will identify his profile, with my mentor support. The profile consists out of his strengths (capabilities/talents/knowledge), his personality (e.g. more a researcher or an entrepreneur) and his interests (what activities turn me on). Useful structures to identify the profile are provided by Tim Clark, Alexander Osterwald and Yves Pingeur: “Business Model You“, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2012). They call it “key resources”.
• Find targets: Value propositions
  Based on the profile or key resources, the next step is to find the activities that are of value for potential customers and that allow my mentee to make a living (earn money) and perhaps harness more personal benefits (such as satisfaction from living his mission or from doing what he likes to do). Tim Clark et alii recommend to find the “value propositions” using their structured “business canvas“.
• Sell and apply: CVs, job selection > job
  Based on the profile and targets identified, we can act and apply for jobs. The profile will be phrased out in CVs (for media such as LinkedIn and for the “paper” CV that  might need adaption for individual applications. As a mentor, I also think of using my network and of coaching the interview process (letter of motivation, what the interviewer may ask/expect or ideas on how to react when being rejected). 
• Digest lessons: Updated profiles, value propositions and CVs
  The experience gained during job applications will help us to loop back and update the profile and value proposition and the CVs (in the media (such as LinkedIn) and in the paper CV. Then more applications may follow – or it is also an alternative to look for options to open a business.
• Hand over to work life: Business mentor
  Once, a job is found, I will have to retreat. I suggest to find a business mentor for similar support in the new work life. Well, in case our mentor/mentee relation was one of trust all the way through, I might have found another friend that would perhaps come back and ask for ideas and support from time to time.