For a productive mentor mentee relationship, it is critical for the mentor to ask pertinent questions to understand the mentee’s desired outcomes.
Hereunder are 10 top questions to ask a mentee:
What are your goals?
It is important to find out from your mentee if he/she has a clear goal that they will like to achieve from the relationship.
Without a clear goal, the mentee mentor relationship will like clarity and direction. Ideally the mentee should articulate clear goals to the mentor at the first meeting.
Do you have an action plan?
A very organized mentee will create a detailed action plan. This action plan should cover priorities and key actionable steps that need to be completed to reach a desired goal.
Ideally this should be divided into short, medium and long term actions. Clear timelines of how long the action will take should be included in the plan.
This document should form the foundation of the mentee mentor relationship.
What are your strengths?
Having an appreciation of the strength of your mentee, can help you make suggestions that will that will play to your mentee’s strength.
Strengths not only include competences or in the case of a career mentor, professional qualifications. Traits such as attention to detail as an example should also be gleaned from the mentee. From your continued interactions, further strengthens may be discovered.
Per venture the mentee is having challenges identifying his/her strengths, then a useful free personality test that you can administer is called the Values in Action (VIA) Character Strength.
This free personality test contains 100 questions. I was able to complete this test in 10 minutes. The test results provide a list of 24 area of strength for your consideration.
On the other hand, you may choose to ask the mentee to take the test whether or not he/she is aware of their strength.
The result of this could provide more scientific feedback which could help you tailor your recommendations to the mentee’s strength.
What are your weaknesses?
We all have weaknesses. Understanding what areas your mentee defines as weaknesses could help you to give tailored solutions to challenges.
At times, the best way to manage weaknesses is to avoid it. Knowledge of the weaknesses will help in providing ideal recommendations to your mentee.
Have you ever worked with a mentor before? If yes, what was your experience like?
It is useful to know if the individual has every worked with a mentor before. If they have then they may have certain expectations based on past relationship.
Therefore, probe a little deeper to glean what that mentor mentee relationship was like.
Did the individual enjoy working with that mentor? What method of accountability works best for that individual? Is there anything about that relationship that the mentee believes could have been better?
This will help you to manage your relationship with the mentee.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?
The response to this question will provide you with insight into the long term plans of the mentee.
If the mentee does not have any vision for the future, then preparing a 5 year plan could be a useful starting point.
When you die, how would you like to be remembered?
This questions forces the mentee to really dig deep to identify how they will like to be remembered.
This is significant as everything that we do should be linked what one believe is their overarching vision and purpose on earth.
What are your favourite subject areas?
This encompasses professional/person areas that the mentee enjoys. Is there a subject area that the mentee could speak about for hours without being bored?
What jobs has the mentee held in the past? What careers have the mentee explored to date?
What are your interests?
This question allows the mentee to express things that he/ enjoys as hobbies. It will also be helpful for the mentee to share areas that he/she has an interest in that has not been explored. The degree of mastery of the interest is irrelevant.
What are you expectations of our mentee-mentor relationship?
This response will help you to understand exactly what the mentee gleans is important for a productive mentee-mentor relationship. What level of support is expected of you as the mentor?
How often should there be a meeting? Does every meeting need to be face to face? Would the mentor be happy with some of the meetings over Skype or via a phone call?
If you enjoyed this article, you may find the following posts on mentorship valuable. Feel free to click on the link below to explore:-
How To Ask Someone To Mentor You
How To Find A Mentor For Your Career
10 Top Career Questions To Ask A Mentor
17 Top Qualities Of A Great Mentee
10 Top Qualities of An Effective Mentor
Five Questions To Ask A Reverse Mentee
12 Top Career Mentoring Questions To Ask A Mentee
7 Important Factors To Consider When Choosing A Mentor
6 Valuable Benefits of Mentoring To Advance Your Career
Final Thoughts
For a mentor mentee relationship to flourish, the mentor must have a clear understanding of the mentee’s expectations.
The above 10 questions will help you gain great knowledge of your mentee on what their expectations are of the relationship.
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