| I've been a mentee, and I now mentor. What I want when I see web sites like this is to see an understanding that mentoring isn't Q&A, and it's not "a chat over coffee". The most successful mentoring arrangements I've seen have always had a clear agreement between mentor and mentee, a mentorship contract with specific goals and hopes outlined over a specified period of time, and a clear commitment to meet and stay on topic, discussing what needs to be discussed. Training for mentors is therefore critical, giving a clear guide to them as to what they should and should not do (knowing when not to give advice is important, a mentor shouldn't feel they need to fix someone's life). For mentees, who generally enter into this from the cold and with little experience... having a good mentor matters. And that is far more about having a person who is able to shape and manage the mentorship process rather than just a specialist in a field. I would suggest going beyond just match-making, and helping to give online training, advice, and a mentor's forum so that they have a support network... such that you can really offer a strong benefit to mentors, and as a result have such high quality mentors that this becomes a key selling point to the mentees. It is much harder to find mentors than mentees after all, so building an attractive proposition to those wanting to give time is critical. PS: As an example of what mentors go through, I've uploaded the notes that were the outcome of the last training session I attended: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a9c832pvsz2tn4j/zAEgACdZ8_/Mentor... . I think online training for mentors, education for them, would enhance the offering... it becomes clearer to them that they can do it, and will be shown how and have support to do so. |
Finding someone who you think "yeah, I could totally put my faith in this person to give me advice and not me a jack ass" is pretty hard from a two paragraph introduction and a list of all the jobs they've ever had.
It's a great idea from a site but it could fail under the insurmountable challenge of making people feel comfortable around each other for that initial encounter.