Benefits for Mentors

While mentorship is undoubtedly valuable to the mentee, mentors can experience rich and sometimes unexpected benefits.

Leadership

Improve communication and leadership skills.

Contacts

Make contacts within your academic field or industry and build your professional network.

Contribute

Give back some of the support you have received and help inspire the next generation of womxn leaders!

Benefits for Mentees

Mentees can gain valuable advice by learning from their mentor's life experiences, challenges and achievements.

Network

Start building a professional network by making contacts in your field.

Career Advice

Get specific career advice from experts in your field - from interview and resumé tips to a successful transition to a professional life.

Clarity

Gain clarity on your career, academic and personal life plans.

Tips to improve your mentorship experience

Asking questions

• ​You may find that communication flows freely from the start of your mentorship, or you may need to work to find some common ground
• Start by asking about career plans, education and work experience, perspectives on career values and interests 

Offering advice and suggestions

• Be clear about your goals when providing feedback and offer specific suggestions
• ​For example, you may encourage your mentee to try a new approach or see a new perspective on a certain issue
• Break down suggestions into concrete steps and provide enough information for the mentee to act on your advice
• Ask questions to spark action ("Where could you find this information...") and offer constructive feedback
• Follow-up and debrief - talk about how the situation went, or why the mentee chose not to take action

Professionalism

• Mentees can learn from mentors by simple observation
• Professional skills that mentors can help mentees develop include: time management, diplomacy, networking and business/academic etiquette

Setting realistic expectations and engagement with the program

• At the beginning of the program, discuss what each person hopes to achieve from the mentorship
• Set specific dates for mentor group meetings and advice sessions (for example, before a job interview)
• Mentors should make clear what type of mentorship activities they are comfortable with (for example, mentors may or may not be willing to perform job shadowing or editing of manuscripts)
• All mentors should make every effort to engage with their mentorship pod and attend events regularly - the amount of effort put into the mentorship directly correlates with the value of the experience!

These tips were compiled from documents by the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) Mentorship Program at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. Find out more about this amazing program here.