Tips for Mentees

Being a mentee (or “mentoree”) is a powerful way for a professional woman to develop and advance her business skills while creating deeper relationships and a strong support network. Participating in a mentoring relationship takes time and commitment from both the mentor and the mentee. It is important that mentees understand how to make it easier for their mentor to help them.

The AIWN Pass it On mentorship program connects professional women looking for advice, guidance, and accountability to our experienced members who have been there and can share a wealth of information about working for yourself and growing a business. If you are interested in participating as a mentor or a mentee during the next session, please sign up here!

Here are tips for mentees to help the mentoring process run smoothly:

1. Do the work. The focus of mentoring is on the your development. The role of the mentor is to facilitate this development, not to do it for you. A mentor is not a teacher–they do not set a curriculum for you and tell you what to learn. This means that you should be taking the initiative to set goals and ask questions, and then make progress on those goals in between mentoring sessions.
2. Commit. Regular, ongoing meetings is the best way to get the most out of your mentoring session. Take the initiative to set meeting times with your mentor, and avoid cancelling and rescheduling once you have agreed to a meeting time.
3. Show up prepared. Have an idea of what you would like to talk about before each meeting. You don’t need a complete agenda, but you do need to decide what you would like to focus on each session.
4. Be yourself. Recognize that you and your mentor might come from different backgrounds, and that is okay. You don’t need to conform to your mentor’s way of doing things if it doesn’t feel right to you, but you can still learn by getting their fresh perspective.
5. Understand that your mentor may not have all the answers. Your mentor may work in a different field than you, or face different issues. There will be plenty that they do have in common with you that they can share, and they may be able to direct you towards good resources for topics they don’t know so much about.
6. Say thank you! It is easy to see what mentees get out of a mentoring relationship, but the benefits to mentors may be less obvious. One of the primary benefits to most of our mentors is the satisfaction of seeing their advice help someone out. So let your mentor know when something they suggested helped you! Saying thank you for their time is polite, but the best way to thank someone for sharing their advice with you is to actually put their advice into action.

Please contact Kelly-Ann Green at ka@kagreencpa.com with any questions on the mentorship program.