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2. Initiate Relationship

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22 mins

How to Prepare for Your First Mentoring Meeting with Your Mentee

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Your first meeting is about getting to know each other and determining if it’s a good fit. Will you be able to guide your mentee and help them achieve their goals?

It’s worthwhile to spend some time preparing for your first meeting. Here are some useful tips to make it more productive -

1. Contact

The mentee needs to reach out to you to set up the first meeting. Making your dates visible on MentorCloud will make scheduling easier. If you have synchronized your calendar, it’ll be easier to set up a date and time for your session without any scheduling conflicts. Ensure you have selected the correct time zones to avoid any confusion later.

Your meeting place, whether in-person or virtual, should be a quiet, safe space where you can both share openly. You could also select your preferred video conferencing tool.

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2. Background

Read up on your mentee on MentorCloud. Your mentee might also have added a link to his/her LinkedIn profile for you to learn about their background and professional experience.

What is their background and experience, achievements and interests?

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3. Agenda

Your mentee should send you an agenda a few days before your meeting. When you create a Session, there is space for you to note down an agenda for your meeting.

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PREPARATION

1. Who are you?

What do you want to share about yourself?
What are your strengths, values and achievements?
Have you mentored before?
What lessons did you learn from that experience?

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2. Why are you a mentor?

What do you hope to get out of the relationship?
What do you hope to learn?

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3. What are your expectations?

Reflect on what you expect from your mentee and how you see your role in the mentoring relationship.

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4. Parameters?

How often do you expect to meet, how you want to communicate, and any needed boundaries you want to establish?

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What is Expected of Mentees?

Mentoring partners have expectations for each other.

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Mentoring partners have expectations for each other. The better they are understood, the more likely the journey will be successful.

Confidentiality: Confidentiality is the cornerstone of a mentoring relationship and is expected of both partners. Nothing can be shared outside of the meeting unless it is mutually agreed to ahead of time. You can write private messages by going into a current Mentorship and clicking on the Messages tab – other mentors and mentees can’t see these interactions.
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Be Prepared: Both Mentees and Mentors are expected to come to meetings prepared, on time, and committed to the process. Unless it’s an emergency, don’t change or cancel meetings. When you set up a Session with your mentor, you can select up a date, time, topic and set an agenda for your session.
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Show Initiative: Mentees are responsible for reaching out to their mentor, arranging the meetings and sending the agenda. They are responsible for their own learning with the mentor acting as a guide. The Goals & Tasks sections under Mentorship will help you set and document a goal to accomplish during the relationship, create tasks that need to be done to achieve the goal, and review your progress. Mentees must follow through on action plans and do what they have committed to. They also understand things can change and stay flexible.
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Remain open to being challenged: Mentees ask for feedback and are open to receiving it. They understand feedback is an essential part of the mentoring process and provides an opportunity to learn and grow.

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