Mentor Guidelines and 80 Questions to Ask Mentee

Guidelines for the First Mentor/Mentee Session

Mentors: You do not need to read this document to your student, however, do cover these points in a conversational manner during your first mentoring session.

First Meeting

1. The bulk of this first meeting should be spent getting to know one another, at an appropriate first meeting level. Don’t expect too much and remember that they might be nervous too!

2. Ask some general and open ended questions about them and share some appropriate information about yourself.
Examples: Current profession; hobbies/interests; family; why you chose to become a mentor

3. Explain how the YMI mentoring process will work.
Example: Mentoring session day(s), time (s), length and location of meetings; Weekly Discussion Starters (i.e. the focus/question of the week)

4. Explain to your mentee that you will respect their privacy and won’t be sharing information from your discussions with anyone else. However, please explain that because you care about their well being, you would need to inform someone else if you discovered that he/she was in danger for any reason.

5. Ask if your mentee understands the process and if they have any questions/concerns.

6. Possibly SAVE for Week 2 Getting Started Conversation: Follow up and review the goals that your mentee selected in the student application.

7. Give your mentee your contact information (cell, email, business card) and confirm their contact information (personal, parent’s) as listed on your “Mentor Info Sheet”.

8. You may enjoy using an Ice Breaker type of question to start or keep a conversation, feel free to use the 80 Questions handout.