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How to Prepare for Your First Mentoring Meeting with Your Mentor

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Your first mentoring meeting can be stressful. The first meeting is all about getting to know each other and gauging whether it's a good match. The better prepared you are, the more you will get out of it.

Here are some useful tips to make it more productive.

Meeting Practicalities

1. Make Contact and Set the Date

The mentee sets up the first meeting, so you have the option to either Request a Session to meet a prospective Mentor or to straightaway Request Mentoring.
Reach out to your mentor and set a date and time. If your mentor gives you permission, you can schedule your meeting right on MentorCloud. Ask your mentor if they would prefer to connect virtually or in-person.
To Schedule a Session, go to the Mentorship Tab and select View Relationship. You will see a button to propose a session.  Fill out the information for the session. If both parties have synchronized their calendars, you can set up a date and time for your session.
Ensure you have selected the correct time zones to avoid any confusion later.
Select a private place to meet where you can both share openly. Simply select Schedule and go to Session Location and select your preferred video conferencing tool or location. You can type in the address for a physical location within the Location details text box.

2. Background

Learn about your mentor’s background on MentorCloud. Your mentor might also have added a link to his/her LinkedIn profile for you to learn about their background and professional experience. 
What is their experience, achievements and interests? 

Have they mentored before? 
Read any announcement, insights or posts they have contributed on the Community tab.

3. Agenda

Send an agenda to your mentor a few days before your first meeting. This will help your mentor be better prepared.


Meeting Preparation

1. Who are you?

What do you want to share about yourself?
What are your strengths, values and achievements? 
What brings you joy and energizes you? 

2. Why do you want to be mentored?

Have a strong understanding of what you want from your Mentoring Journey. 
Do you have goals you want to achieve or anything specific you want to learn? 

3. What do you want to learn from your mentor?

Send an agenda to your mentor a few days before your first meeting. This will help your mentor be better prepared.


4. Parameters?

Think about how often you want to meet, how you want to communicate, and any needed boundaries.
You have the option to set up recurring meetings under Sessions. Simply tick the box “Make this a recurring session” when you create a Session.

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How to Help Your Mentee Set Goals

Realistic goals that can be measured and achieved will improve both party’s experience and satisfaction.
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Here are some requirements a goal should meet -

1. Inspiring

Your mentee should be excited and enthusiastic about working towards these goals. 

2. Challenging, Yet Achievable

 Your mentee will grow if there’s a bit of a stretch to the goal, provided it’s attainable. 

3. Measurable and Time-Based

Goals should be measurable so you both know when they are achieved. They also should have a time-frame.

5 Steps For Goal Setting

Ideally, your mentee should have at least three primary goals. Here are steps to help your mentee set goals. Use the MentorCloud worksheet to document and track progress.

STEP 1: Explore

You and your mentee should look at all the major friction areas of their work and personal life. Your mentee needs to identify at least three areas to focus on through their Mentoring Journey.

Here are some open-ended questions you can ask your mentee: 

  • What do you want to accomplish in the upcoming months?
  • What are some things you would really like to learn or do?
  • What comes to mind in terms of personal or professional friction areas impacting you?
  • What else have you always dreamed of doing?
  • What would you like to see in your life that currently is not there?

STEP 2: Identify

  • From these areas, you can help your mentee identify their goals. Eliminate goals that are not relevant to the mentoring journey
  • Encourage your mentee to record their goals using the MentorCloud worksheet. 

Here are some questions to ask your mentee:

  • Does the goal meet the requirements of being motivating, challenging, achievable, and time-bound?
  • How will you measure success and know when you have achieved the goal?

STEP 3: Needs Analysis

After the goals are recorded, help your mentee think about the steps to achieve them.

Questions to ask your mentee:

  • How do you see accomplishing this goal?
  • What will you need to achieve it?
  • What resources, knowledge, help, or collaboration will you need?

STEP 4: Obstacles

What could prevent your mentee from achieving their goals, and how could it be overcome?

Questions to ask your mentee:

  • What do you fear could prevent you from reaching these goals?
  • How can I help you?

STEP 5: Milestones And Action Plan 

Milestones will help your Mentee measure their progress. Start by identifying a milestone and timeline with each goal. Ensure your mentee has a reasonable action plan for each goal.

Questions to ask your mentee:

  • What milestones will help you track each goal?
  • What help, or collaboration will you need?

Once your mentee has identified some goals, discuss it with them, and ensure it’s entered in the Goals & Tasks sections under Mentorship so you can refer back to it. If a goal seems too broad or unrealistic, help your mentee break these down into doable tasks and review their progress.