How does the mentoring process work

Register

To get started, register as a mentor, mentee or both on the mentoring programme platform.

Complete your profile

Once you have registered, the next step is to complete your profile.

• For mentors, this information will help us to match you to mentees who are looking for your skills and experience
• For mentees, it provides the information needed to suggest potential mentors based on the matching criteria you select

Search

Once a mentee has completed their profile, they will be shown a broad list of potential mentors who match the criteria they selected, with the closest matches at the top of the list.

You can change the search criteria and narrow down your search by selecting an exact match.

Ask a question

Mentees can view the mentor’s profile and have the option to ask them a question.

This could be to help solve a specific issue, or it may be to ask a question around the mentor’s experience, to help find the best match.

Request

Once a mentee is satisfied that they have found an appropriate mentor, they can send a mentoring request. It’s a good idea to use the edit function to add in a little bit more detail around what type of support is required.

The mentor will be sent an email alert asking them to review the mentoring request and to accept or decline it.

Mentors can use our messaging function to contact the mentee prior to accepting if they need any further information.

If a mentor does decline, the mentee is informed and can choose an alternative mentor to send a request to.

Arrange a meeting

Once a mentor accepts a mentoring request, the mentee is informed and at this point both the mentor and mentee can find each other’s contact details on the relationship dashboard.

The mentee is asked to contact the mentor to arrange the first conversation.

If at any point either mentee or mentor decides they no longer wish to continue the relationship they can withdraw using the withdraw function in the "Details" section of the relationship dashboard.

Preparing for the first meeting

Once you have arranged your first conversation you can start to prepare for the meeting using some of our first conversation preparation tools.

These are designed to help you get your mentoring relationship off to a great start.

You can access these tools in the "Tools" section of your relationship dashboard.

SMART goal setting

Starting a mentoring relationship without setting goals is a bit like setting off on a journey without deciding where you're going, and just hoping you will get there.

This is why we place quite a lot of emphasis on setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based (SMART) goals at the start of your mentoring relationship and we provide you with tools to help you do this.

Goal progression

Once goals have been set, the main part of your mentoring journey will be to make progress towards achieving these goals, recording milestones along the way.

Goal progression will differ for every participant. Some mentees' progression may be quite short, while others could go on for 12 months or more.

Built into the platform are number of guides and videos that outline techniques to help you keep your mentoring on track to ensure you achieve your goals.

Completion

Once you feel you have achieved your goals, we provide some tips on how to bring your mentoring relationship to an end. You may then continue your relationship more informally or even set some new goals and start a new journey – it's entirely up to you.