How It All Works
By engaging in different activities on the alma Mentoring Platform, you will complete goals, which will then be displayed on the overview page of your profile. In order to save a completed goal on your profile, such as attending an appointment or finishing your mentorship, both parts of a mentoring team must give their consent.
Other activities, such as managing a group or creating, editing and rating articles in the Mentoring Wiki, will also add to your "credits" on the site.
The number of your "credits" will also reveal the degree of your commitment to other users as well as potential mentees.
Starting Your Mentorship
To start the mentorship process, mentees fill out a mentorship-request on the platform in their profile under "My Data" in the section "My Mentoring". Mentors will then receive the mentee's request by e-mail. Mentors can then view the mentee's profile and decide whether they would like to accept the request or not.
As soon as a mentor has accepted a request, mentee and mentor have access to a chat with each other on the website and arrange for a first meeting.
In case a mentor does not accept a request, we ask you to please send a message to your mentee.
Meeting For the First Time
Get to know each other and agree on the basics of the mentorship, in particular on the following questions:
- For how long should the mentorship last?
- How many times do you plan on meeting in the course of the mentoring process?
- How exactly and how often do both sides wish to get in touch?
At the first meeting, it is best to outline an agenda for the meetings to come.
Your Mentorship-Agreement
As soon as a mentorship has been accepted by a mentor, mentees (only mentees) have access to a mentorship-agreement in the "Mentoring" section of their profile. They fill in the agreement with what you has been agreed to in the first meeting. They then send the agreement via the website to their mentor for approval. Mentors will be alerted on the website when they need to give their consent to the agreement.
Approval by both sides marks the official beginning of a mentorship process. Of course, the mentorship-agreement can be changed and adapted at any time by mutual consent.
During Your Mentorship
Every meeting that has taken place within an ongoing mentorship must be confirmed by both parties in their calendar. Again, it is the mentees responsibility to schedule meetings on the website and send them to their mentors for approval.
Any changes to the schedule making it necessary to depart from the number of meetings or the duration of the mentorship defined in the mentorship agreement should be marked in the mentorship agreement and confirmed by both parties.
After each confirmed meeting and in the event of prolonged inactivity, you will receive an automated e-mail request for feedback.
All activities on the site will be listed among your credits in your profile.
Completing Your Mentorship
Officially terminating your mentorship is important for both sides, even if they plan to stay in contact also after the mentorship has ended. For this purpose, we recommend to arrange a final meeting and define it as such.
After finishing your mentorship, you will receive a certificate, which will be permanently saved to the "Mentoring" section of your profile and remain available for download.