User Guides

Why Become a Mentor: The Benefits for Mentors

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Why become a mentor? Many people assume mentoring only benefits the mentee. In fact, mentoring can be mutually beneficial, with the mentor gaining as much as their mentee. 

Here are some reasons why you should become a mentor -

  1. Personal Reflection: Mentoring gives you the rare chance to reflect on your own career, values and purpose, and sometimes to course correct. 
  1. Learn New Things: Mentoring forces you out of your comfort zone. Your mentee can share insights on new technology and trends, and you can learn new things and stay fresh. Make sure your mentee knows you are learning from them too. 
  1. Improve Your Interpersonal Skills: Mentoring requires developing your social skills, such as listening, feedback and questioning. Through mentoring, you will have a lot of opportunities to practice with them. 
  1. Give Back: Experience the satisfaction of making a difference in another person’s life and seeing them grow and learn. It’s the right thing to do and will make you feel good. 
  1. Strengthen  Your Leadership Bona Fides: Mentor experience is required for many executive positions and will boost your career development. 

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How to Prepare for Your First Mentoring Meeting with Your Mentor

Your first mentoring meeting can be stressful.
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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.