Mentorship Guidelines – Mentoring Groups

Published on February 16, 2024

Approaching A Mentorship

A mentorship can take a variety of forms and lead to a variety of outcomes. It can be the kind of relationship that focuses on answering questions about a project that you’re stuck on, or about advice on learning a new language/technology/skill; or it can be about developing a learning plan for those who are self-taught.

But it may also be the kind of relationship where advice is given/information shared about the industry, how to prepare for interviews, or a sharing of experiences about specific technologies or job roles.

Be open to the possibility that you may connect with someone from the other side of the world, who may speak a different first language, or may be from another culture and/or country.

This can pose a variety of challenges. If you’re based on opposite ends of the globe, you may choose to communicate in written form (email, Slack, or any other chat option) which allows ample time to respond without the pressure to arrange a specific meeting time. Or perhaps you’re both living within the same time zone and decide to hold your mentorship meetings through a video conferencing tool.

Setting Mentorship Expectations

Whichever mentorship style you choose, you should set realistic expectations from the start. Think about how much time you can invest each day or week for communication. Communicate your expectations of the relationship as clearly as possible. Some questions you may want to address are:

What do you hope to achieve from the mentorship?
How much time are you willing and able to commit?
Should the mentorship meetings be once a week, twice a week, once a month, or ad-hoc?
Is this mentorship open-ended or do you need just a few sessions?
What will your primary method of communication be?
How do you want to track your progress?

Re-Evaluating Your Mentorship

After a few mentorship sessions, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate your mentorship goals and assess your progress. A mentorship should only continue as long as both parties find the relationship to be valuable.

Ending A Mentorship

If one or both of you decide that the mentorship is no longer serving its purpose, there’s no shame in pausing the mentorship or mutually ending it. You should never feel guilty about re-assessing the mentorship and ending it if that’s what’s best.

If you’re thinking about ending your mentorship, here is one way you can respectfully end your mentorship.

“Hi . I have truly appreciated the time we’ve spent during our mentorship sessions and I’ve learned a lot from you, however after reflecting upon my goals I’ve decided that it’s best to end our mentorship. I would love to stay in touch and keep the option on the table to revisit a possible mentorship in the future. Thank you again for your time.“

Assessing Your Mentorship Goals

If you both decide that you want to continue with the mentorship, you should revisit the established goals.

Are these goals still relevant and achievable?
Should I set new goals?

Goals shouldn’t be too big or too small. They should be achievable within one or two sessions. For example if your overarching goal is to get better at React, set smaller goals which can be met by the next meeting. Your goals might look something like this:

Create one React functional component
Integrate the React functional component into an application
Create one React stateful component
Add state to the React component
Update state on user input

Mentorships can lead to more than just improved skills and networking; they could also lead to a new job, a travel opportunity,or a collaboration on a project. We hope that the connections made on Coding Coach will be enjoyed to the fullest!

Types Of Mentorships

There are several different types of mentorships you can take advantage of, and you don’t have to pick just one! You can have different mentors for different skills you want to improve. Below are two of the most common mentorships:

Career

If you’re looking to gain insight on a particular career field or if you’re thinking about switching roles, a career mentorship might be a good fit for you. These are typically professionals who are in a role similar to yours or are in the role you see yourself being in one day.

Here are some questions you may want to ask your career mentor:

What was you career path into your current role?
What was the biggest challenge you overcame?
What types of roles are available with my skill set?
What skills should I improve to achieve this role?

Technical

Technical mentorships are the most popular mentorship type and there are a few ways you can approach them. My favorite type of technical mentor is project-based.

We all learn programming best by writing code, thus it’s a good idea to create a project you and your mentor can work through. Before each meeting, set a list of features you want to implement, and then spend the mentor meeting reviewing your code.

You may also choose a technical mentorship structured more as a question and answer. It’s important to come to the meeting with questions already written out so you can maximize your mentorship meetings.