Mentee Guidelines
Published on February 16, 2024
What To Know
Congratulations on taking the first step to being a mentee! Here are some guidelines for how to be a great mentee and get the most out of our mentorship.
Be Respectful
Be respectful of your mentor’s time. Show up when you’ve agreed to meet. A mentor is likely a very busy individual and they are giving up their time, likely during working hours, or in their free time, to meet with you. Plus, you want to get the most out of your meetings.
Show Gratitude
The mentors will help you for free so they are using their own time and resources and asking for nothing in return. Don’t take it for granted and show your appreciation by thanking them. Give them specific feedback about how they’ve helped you; it not only encourages them, but it also helps them become better mentors.
Be Open To Learning
Be open to the advice that your mentor gives you. Receiving direction from someone with more experience than you goes a long way in showing a mentor that you are willing to learn.
Respect Boundaries
Be mindful to not be too demanding of your mentor’s time. Each mentorship will be unique in frequency of communication. After the first few interactions you’ll begin to get a feel for what works for you and your mentor, but, if in doubt, you can be direct about the best times/days to communicate.
How To Reach Out To A Mentor
First, determine which type of mentorship you’re looking for or which skill you’re looking to improve. Next, determine what types of things are important to you in a mentorship. Perhaps you’re looking for someone who lives in the same geographic location. Once you have these requirements figured out, you can begin your search for the perfect mentor.
Once you’ve found the mentor you’d like to contact, it’s time to reach out. Here is a simple message you might want to send to a potential mentor:
“Hi . I am looking to improve my skills in <skill> and found your profile on Coding Coach. I would love if we could establish a mentorship and work towards my goal. I am looking forward to hearing back from you.”
Searching For A Mentor
Head over to the directory and look through the list of mentors. You can search, using the filters, for specific languages, technologies, or country. You can also follow mentors that spark an interest.
Once you’ve found a mentor you’re interested in (and after you registered of course), feel free to contact them using the provided channels (email, Slack, Twitter, etc.) Send them a short intro about who you are, where you’re from. Describe what your needs are, for example your goals in web development, and how a mentor could help you achieve those goals. A few sentences about each should do. Be as clear as you can.
Sometimes, when you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s really difficult to articulate how you wish to grow. A course that may provide invaluable help with creating a learning path and set learning goals is Zubin Pratap’s Before you learn programming: what will help you succeed at Udemy.
Once you’ve clarified where you’re at, and how you’d like to grow, the mentor may make a few suggestions which might include things for you to focus on, read, study, work on. Together the two of you can decide what platform would be best to communicate on: Slack and email work well for communicating; you could also use a video conferencing service like Skype or GoToMeeting if you want to talk and share your screens.
