Transformative Mentorship

How to Talk About Being a Mentor on Your Resume

Cate Burlington Sep 22, 2023 1:15:11 PM

When you apply for a job, the hiring manager may only look at your resume for 10 seconds or less. This makes sense when you consider that they have dozens or hundreds of applications to sift through. They want to see your most relevant qualifications, clearly and quickly.

The good news? Your experience as a mentor is going to be relevant to many jobs you might apply for, so let’s talk about how to make sure it stands out!

What Are a Mentor’s Skills?

Here are some skills that a history of mentoring could demonstrate (with examples of what this could look like in practice:

Professional Communication	Communicating electronically and in-person with your mentees in an appropriate and consistent way–lets employers know you’re ready to be part of a team of colleagues
Coaching	Helping mentees set and achieve goals–means that you’re ready to support colleagues, clients, and/or people you supervise in a work context
Problem-Solving	Helping your mentee deal with issues they’ve encountered and overcome obstacles – creativity and persistence when faced with an obstacle is valuable in almost every work role
Conflict Resolution	Dealing with any friction that comes up with your mentee; and/or providing guidance to your mentee in navigating conflicts they had with others–an employer will see this as highly valuable for navigating tricky workplace issues
Research	Finding appropriate resources for your mentee–many jobs require research of one kind or another, and the ability to find resources both internally and externally to the company will serve you well
Commitment to a Long-Term Role	Being a mentee over a long-term, multi-month commitment, as opposed to shorter-term volunteer work that might only take a day or a week to complete–most employers will want someone who can stick to a commitment and won’t flake out on them
Interpersonal Relationships	Working through any differences or miscommunications between yourself and your mentee–so-called “soft skills”, such as getting along well with people from different backgrounds, are extremely valuable in every workplace
Desire to Serve/Give Back	Volunteering your time to help your mentee because you care about helping those within your community and want to give others a leg up–many employers will appreciate this quality, especially those with a community focus or goal of corporate responsibility
Investment in Developing Skills in Others	Helping your mentee to develop, and being able to see their setbacks and progress over time–employers will look for someone who is a team player and can support their colleagues and/or those whom they supervise

Think about which of these skills apply to you—along with others you’d add to the list!). Those are the skills you want to highlight when they’re relevant to the job you’re applying for.

When writing your resume, it can be hard to know how to phrase things, and building a good resume is definitely a skill that takes practice!

Examples

To help you, we’ve developed a few examples that show how a person might list their mentor experience on a resume. Please, for your own sake, do NOT copy these examples word-for-word. It’s dishonest, and if an organization you’re applying uses resume analysis software, it could show up as plagiarism.

EXPERIENCE

Peer Mentor, University of Featherstoneville (2022-2023)

Served as mentor to 3 incoming first-year students over 3 semesters, assisting them with navigating campus resources and adapting to university norms and practices.
Assisted mentees by researching local organizations and groups to help meet their needs, including finding food banks for a mentee experiencing food insecurity.
Coached mentees in professional communications and conflict resolution.

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, University of Featherstoneville (2023)

Academics: 3.8 GPA; Psychology Undergraduate Innovation Award (2022); Dean’s list

Other Accomplishments: Peer mentor in Featherstoneville First Year Experience program, mentoring three incoming freshmen and employing communication, leadership, and research skills to help them overcome challenges and find success in the college environment

Resume “Do”s and “Don’t”s

DON’T LIE ON YOUR RESUME. It can be tempting to put something on your resume to make your application stand out, but it’s always a bad idea to lie and it can lead to severe repercussions.
DO Ask your mentee what they enjoyed about the experience. If you’re unsure what skills you developed as a mentor or how well you did, ask your mentee! They can offer a new look at your time together by telling you how they experienced it. And who knows: maybe they saw something in you that you didn’t see in yourself!
DO consider listing your mentor experience even if it didn’t work out like you’d hoped! If you had an experience as a mentor that was disappointing in some way, it could still be useful to have on your resume if it can highlight your skills and abilities. For example, if your mentee wound up leaving or dropping the mentor relationship, you can still list the experience and how it improved your skills.
DON'T clog up your resume with too much information about your mentor experience–or anything else. Be concise. Remember that the purpose of a resume is to get you a job interview. If you have more to say, a cover letter or the interview are good places to tell more meaningful stories.
Do focus on your skills and accomplishments. Instead of just listing what happened (“I was a mentor”), frame it in a way that makes you a good job candidate (“I gained skills in communication and professional relationships by being a mentor”)