Becoming a  Mentee 

Technically, one academic year, however we encourage you to remain in contact beyond this if you develop a strong relationship with your mentee.

Most programs utilize volunteer mentors, but check with your program to learn about paid mentoring opportunities. Whichever opportunities your program provides, we welcome (and encourage) you to include your experience as a mentor on LinkedIn or your resume. As a mentor, you have the chance to develop strong leadership and communication skills.

That’s fine! You always have the option to adjust your involvement. Email help@mentorcollective.org if you want to opt out of the program, reduce the number of students you are supporting, increase the number of students you are supporting, or if you have questions.

Mentors can take any number of mentees they are interested in. Most mentors take somewhere between 2 and 5 mentees at a time. The most important thing is that you do what feels right for you.

After you register, there are a couple of next steps:

• Fill out a brief matching survey that tells us about you and your preferences (5-10 minutes)

• Complete your mentor training that goes over the basics of Mentor Collective and being an effective mentor (45 minutes)

• After those steps, you and your mentee can determine together what timing works best for you. You will be expected to speak with your mentee once a month, but anything more than that is up to both of you. Most mentors spend between 1 and 3 hours a month per mentee.

Throughout your mentorship, we ask you and your mentee(s) to log your conversations on our website or through our automated texts. But what counts as a conversation? It can be:

• 1 phone call

• 1 videochat session

• 1 email exchange

• 1 in-person "interaction" (grabbing coffee, spending 10 minutes talking before class, etc.)

• 2+ text messages exchanged within 1 day

If in doubt, please don't hesitate to ask us at help@mentorcollective.org. Logging conversations helps your program administrator(s) gauge whether the program is helping students, and how to help them better!

We take concerns like these very seriously. As a mentor, you will have different opportunities for sharing a concern like this with us.

While reporting conversations on the MC website, you can indicate any concern you have about your mentee (or that your mentee needs extra support), as well as through monthly texts we send you.

Once you let us know about a serious concern, we send your concern to a point person in your program who can reach out to your mentee and provide extra resources and support.

Aside from developing leadership skills, you’ll receive a LinkedIn trained mentor certification that you can also add to your resume. You’ll be a part of a community of mentors in programs across the country, have access to Mentor Office Hours where you can ask questions and share ideas with other mentors, and you’ll have the opportunity to attend exclusive mentorship events.