SwM - Cohort 3 (Spring 2022) Canada East Program

MENTORSHIP CONVERSATION GUIDE

Mentors and Student Conversations

Speed Networking Protocols - Introduction

Welcome to Soar with MENTOR Speed Mentorship Networking!

Every meeting, students will have the opportunity to meet with a Dell mentor 2-3 times in a virtual breakout room.

Synchronous (Video Conferencing) protocols:

  • Mentors and students will have an assigned breakout room

  • Program leaders will pop in and out of the assigned rooms

  • Mentors and students will return to the main room when the conversation is over, or the designated time is up

Dell Mentors will lead the first conversation by introducing themselves and the students will respond.

Some ideas as to what you may want to say in your introductions:

  • My name is….

  • My role/major is...at company/school

  • What excites me about this mentorship program is….

  • Some of my current goals include…..

Possible Questions for your first Speed Networking Conversation – Use as needed, in any order, to keep the conversation flowing

Mentor

Can you share a bit about your family?

What are your favorite things to do when you're not in school?

If you could have dinner with a famous person, who would it be? Why?

What extracurricular activities do you like to participate in during the school year?

What are some things in your life you are most proud of?

How would your friends describe you?

Any thoughts on what you want to do after you graduate?

What is one thing you would really like to know about me?

Student

Can you share a bit about your family?

What do you like to do outside of work?

What was your education pathway?

What was your first job? What did you like or dislike about it?

Did you think you’d find yourself in this industry? How did you get here?

If you could learn to play any instrument, what would it be and why?

What superhero do you identify with the most? Why?

Did you have a mentor at some point in your career? If so, how did s/he help you? If not, why did you never seek one out

Career and Life Readiness Follow Up Questions

Mentorship

  • What is your first reaction when you receive candid feedback?

  • Do you regularly take time to reflect on your week and jot down things that could have gone better?

  • What do you do to keep yourself accountable to new lessons or goals you're pursuing?

  • What is the difference between a Mentor and an Advocate?

  • What if you don't connect or get along with your mentor?

Resume Building

  • A brand statement clearly defines who you are professionally – it includes hard skills, soft skills and an impact statement. What is it about you that a future employer can expect? What are you known for? How might you express that in your resume?

  • Resumes include accomplishments. Accomplishments are not the tasks themselves but the end result or impact of those actions. In what ways does your resume clearly state impact? Share some specific examples. How might you improve them?

Digital Branding

  • What personal and professional interests do you plan to incorporate into your personal brand?

  • What audience is your social media presence currently designed for?

  • What changes do you plan to make to your social media presence to leverage it more effectively?

Interviewing Skills

  • What are some ways to follow up after an interview?

  • What are some ways to answer the 'tell me about yourself' question?

  • How many steps are there in a typical interview process?

Today in Technology Follow Up Questions

Cybersecurity

  • What are some valuable skill sets you bring to the table as a young professional who grew up with access to the modern day internet that would make you an asset?

  • What are some ways that advancements in technology has affected your field of study? And vice versa - how can you use your field of study to be an effective participant in a technology driven world?

  • With the advent of social media, the increasing amount of data-mining, our growing reliance on connection to the internet for forms of communication, access to information, data storage in the cloud, etc. what are things that you can do to protect yourself from social engineering, phishing, and other technology-based security threats?

  • How does it change your perception of a company when they ask for two factor authentication, captchas, complex passwords, etc.?

Artificial Intelligence

  • What AI use cases did you find most interesting?

  • Which ones were most surprising?

  • How many times per day do you think you interact with AI in some way?

Cloud

  • How has COVID impacted your conversations on Cloud?

  • What do you see as the real benefit to Cloud Computing?

  • What do you see as some of the biggest challenges with Cloud adoption?


Possible Sentence Prompts to support your conversations

Mentor

Suggestions:

  • One thing I noticed….

  • Something to consider trying is…

  • A couple things to keep in mind….

Clarification:

  • Would you tell me more about….

  • Let me see if I understand…

Redirection:

  • What is another way….

  • What do you think would happen if…

  • How is ….different (like) from….

Student

  • Some of my take aways from the session are….

  • Something I learned that I can apply to my life today is…

  • Something I think I can apply to my future is….

  • One of my challenges with this will be…

  • In some of my goals, you will notice….

  • Here is an example of…

  • An area where I would like your opinion or feedback is….

Some ideas for ending and/or reflecting on a conversation:

  1. I wish to share what I have learned from you….

  2. Another area of growth that I feel proud about…

  3. This has been a great opportunity for us to learn together.

  4. I also think you grew as with evidence in….

  5. It has been a pleasure to meet you…thank you for the conversation…