1. Mentoring.
Mentoring involves guiding people through a particular transition process by someone who has been through the same process before and can provide support through their own experience. Mentoring should be a longer-term commitment to be effective, because for mentees it is primarily about reflecting on desires and goals, recognizing the spaces have to maneuver in and being strengthened through a mentor's accompaniment.
2. Your role as a mentor
Mentors make themselves available to mentees as contacts and need to set boundaries at the beginning of a mentorship as to which form(s) of communication should take place. Please do not hesitate to state your wishes for the mentorship right at the beginning - we will prepare the mentees accordingly as to what their own role in a mentorship entails.
Communicate clearly, for example, which frequency and which types of communication between meetings are okay for you. Are mentees allowed to contact you between meetings with urgent questions, such as upcoming job interviews or when they need to make time-sensitive decisions? Do you prefer to be contacted by email, phone, or text messages?
Although mentees usually start the process with a focus on gaining information, we know from our years of experience that a successful mentorship for mentees arises primyourarily from feeling supported by you. Your task as a mentor is above all to strengthen your mentee, to open up room for reflection in your meetings and to broaden your mentee's horizons. A mentorship-meeting should always provide an opportunity for mentees to take a deep breath and organize their thoughts.
For you this also means, that you do not have to worry about perhaps not having sufficient knowledge or too little experience for the role as a mentor. Mentees should definitely be empowered in mentorship to research information themselves and stay active throughout the process.
During a mentorship, keep in mind your role:
Mentoring is a working relationship:
Mentees may go through stressful periods and will in all likelihood communicate this to you - after all, you are a confidant. Remain aware of your role in the mentorship and, if necessary, counteract in good time if topics other than those agreed to at the beginning of the mentorship take up too much space.
We recommend that, if you have this opportunity, you hold personal mentorship-meetings in work premises. For one this underlines the character of the working relationship, but it also provides a better opportunity to discus confidential topics than, for example, if you meet in public spaces such as a café.
You are in a hierarchically structured relationship:
You are ahead of the mentees in your experience and mostly also in terms of age. For this very reason, it is important that you encourage mentees to make their own decisions and to actively go their own way. In doing so, you prevent the development of a dependency-relationship in your mentee. Even if this is not a likely path that your mentorship will take, you should remain aware of this immanent hierarchy within a mentorship.
Implicit desire for network building through mentorship:
Many mentees have a strong awareness that they need to build a professional network. You as a mentor will - at least for the defined period of the mentorship - be part of this network.
At the same time you bring your own professional network to the table and for your mentee it might of course be desirable to gain access to it. You have no obligation to open up your personal professional network to your mentee. It is best to think about where you want to draw your lines in this regards to this before you start a mentorship.
Mentees receive for additional information and support from the alma team to build their own professional network - i.e. in the context of special workshops for mentees that we offer.
A question we are often asked is whether mentors and mentees should be on first-name terms with each other. This is of course up to you and depends on what you feel more comfortable with.
We recommend, however, to address each other, at least at the beginning of a mentorship, on a last-name-basis. Your mentorship is a hierarchically-gradated working relationship and the familiarity evoked by being on a first-name basis can blur the boundaries of that situation. When the processes and contents of your mentorship have become settled after the first couple of meetings and you feel it is appropriate, you can then still offer to be on first-name terms.
3. alma Mentees
alma mentees are students and graduates of the University of Vienna who are looking for support with:
- career orientation and career entry
- starting a business and becoming self-employed
- working abroad