IEEE Mentoring Program

The IEEE Mentoring Program is a valuable member-benefit which pairs qualified IEEE members together in establishing a mentoring partnership for guidance in multiple areas such as career, education, leadership, volunteering or technical. The program is implemented via IEEE Collabratec® (home of the IEEE Member Directory and available to all IEEE members using single-sign-on credentials) through its self-pairing and tracking mechanism. Some Societies and Affinity Groups may include additional guidelines and/or process steps.   

This is a Member benefit that could change your life in so many positive ways!

The process is relatively easy for prospective mentees as well as mentors : 

Activate - Search - Request - Accept - Track

The following guidelines offer a basic framework for mentors and mentees to follow with the understanding that time is valuable and both parties should be respectful of that. 

Continue reading and please watch the one-minute video (on right or in mobile, scroll down).

*Participation in the program is open to all IEEE members (all grades).

Why is it important to become a Mentor?

As a Mentor, engineers and technologists can more formally share their unique experience and help guide students and young professionals who are just starting out as well as providing structured advice for any member who is looking for opportunities in specific fields or regions.

But that shouldn't limit anyone from becoming a mentor because everyone has some expertise in a subject matter that would be useful to some other IEEE member. Like a graduate student helping a first year student or a younger person who has mastered apps on their mobile device sharing their expertise with someone who is not as mobile-savvy (sometimes referred to as reverse-mentoring).

Why is it important to be guided by a Mentor?

As a Mentee, IEEE Members at any stage of their professional journey, especially when just getting started, like students or young professionals, can receive insights and guidance on how to best navigate their career for a specific technical pursuit or leadership position. Additionally, mentors can provide mentees with available volunteering opportunities which offer great potential to be involved with new endeavors. 

We'll say it again, This is a Member benefit that could change your life in so many positive ways!

The IEEE Mentoring Program via Collabratec is set up to be versatile enough to be implemented in various ways, two of which as follows: 

• Any IEEE Member, once they have activated their Mentee status, can search a list of Mentors based on their requirements and criteria and request a guidance partnership from an available Mentor. And you can be both a mentor and a mentee!

• Any IEEE Society or IEEE-related entity can host their own Mentoring initiative with additional guidelines (see note) and use Collabratec to easily implement the pairing, tracking and analytics. 

Note: Some groups had been performing these functions manually using spreadsheets and emails which is unnecessarily cumbersome. They have now switched to Collabratec. Please use the effective mechanism we have specifically created to make life easier!

Getting started

1. The IEEE Member will log in to Collabratec.

2. Fill in areas of your profile that would be important for either a Mentor or Mentee to know such as: technical interests, technical expertise or specialties, enhanced degrees, etc. The areas which are auto-populated from your IEEE Account include: location, IEEE section, university attended, groups and memberships you currently belong to, and your past and present volunteer positions. 

3. Since you control the visibility of each element of your profile, it is essential to make each element visible to the other participating 'IEEE Members' to allow them to make the best informed choices. 

4.  Set several specific Communications Preferences buckets to Real Time or Daily (See Screenshot). It is imperative for the Mentor to respond in a timely fashion, 7-10 days so as not to keep the Mentee hanging. We advise the Mentee to first send a message to make sure the Mentor is available before a request is made. 

NOTE: For your Mentor-Mentee experience to work best, these areas must be set to a more-frequent setting! : 

• Messaging - Real Time or Daily

• Workspaces - Real Time or Daily

• Personal Networks - Real Time or Daily

• Posts - Real Time or Daily

5. The prospective Mentor or Mentee will go to their Career Services page (found under the top nav 'Collaborate' heading) and select the link  Mentoring Program Guidelines. for their review.

The basic process steps:

1. From your Career Services page, the prospective Mentor or Mentee would activate their respective status via the checkboxes (You can be both a Mentor and a Mentee).

2. The Mentee, once they activate their status, gains access to the list of Mentors, employs any filters to meet their search criteria like a particular society or related to a technical interest, reviews the information of each of the prospective Mentors.

When the mentee has narrowed their search down to a few prospective mentors they can send a message to get further clarification on the availability of the mentor and whether the goals align (this is a suggested intermediary step before selecting 'Mentor Request').

They can then select the 'Mentor Request' button which opens a request form pop up. The request form includes whether the member is a student or current working professional, areas of guidance requested as well as the term length. The Mentee selects 'send' after filling out. Note: a mentee can send a message (available message button) to a prospective Mentor prior to making the request. 

3. The Mentor receives a notification of the request. They would go to their Career Services page and there would be a mentoring partnership status console displaying the pending partnership and request for review. They would approve the request. They do have the option to message the Mentee first if they have any questions by clicking on the Mentee's name.

4. The 'pending' status then changes to 'Active' and the partnership has begun. There is a 'workspace' button available which provides access to a workspace which is auto-created by the system for the Mentor and Mentee to facilitate the work of the partnership. For more information on what you can do in a workspace, go to the Workspaces section.

5. The Mentoring program guidelines document provides best practices for the most effective Mentoring partnership. 

6. When the partnership ends, an 'Evaluate' button is displayed which takes the Mentor or Mentee to a quick feedback form which asks questions about the process and partnership. It is important to fill it out so we can use the information to improve the process.

Mentors

1. Select the Career Services tab and check the box, "Activate Mentor". Your profile including Profile summary and Profile Quickview will now include a 'Mentor' icon (see image).

2. Select preferences that you seek in a Mentee and then "Save Mentor Settings" (green button). Many of these preferences are optional.

3. Approve the request when a mentee has selected you as a mentor. You will receive a 'Mentor Request' notification in the Pending section on your Dashboard. Go to your Career Services page to view the Mentor request form which contains the Mentee requirements. Note: A message button is available in order to send a prospective Mentee a message before approving.  

Mentee - To find and request a mentor    

1. Activate your Mentee status by checking the 'activation' box found on the Career Services page.  

2. When your Mentee status has been activated from the above action, a button labeled 'Access Mentor List' appears. Click on the button and you will be navigated to the 'People' section with the IEEE Mentors filter pre-selected.  

A list of mentors will appear, represented by their profile summary (the blue mentor icon will be displayed on their profile). 

3. Scroll though the list of Mentors. Use the filters available on the left rail to help narrow your search (if desired). Review each of the Mentors' information. By clicking on a Mentor's name, a QuickView profile popup will appear which contains most of the information from a Member's full profile.  Look for information related to the goals you have in mind like aligning technical interests, technical fields, degrees, etc. 

 It is recommended to send a message to the prospective mentor(s) to discuss goals, field of expertise and compatibility of schedules before sending a mentor request.

4. When you have chosen a prospective mentor, select the "Mentor Request" button from the Mentor's QuickView or regular profile (also available from the Profile Summary under '+Network' tab). Fill out the requested information such as Mentee-type, student or professional (indicates graduated or current working professional), area of guidance and term length. See related image on left (Mobile scroll below).

5. When the Mentor accepts your request, the partnership begins. You will receive a notification and the 'pending' status' will change to 'active' in the partnership status summary section on your Career Services page. 

Note: please allow 7-10 days and it is advised to send them a follow-up message as you await their response. Mentor requests expire after 30 days.

Partnership Established (Mentor request has been accepted) 

After the Mentor accepts the request, the partnership will be listed as ‘active’ on the Mentoring status summary section on the Career Services page. A workspace is automatically created and is accessible from this section (your Dashboard as well). This workspace is a shared space to collaborate between the pair by sharing concepts, comments, and content. This includes file upload and management capabilities. It also includes a project management tool called Project Tracker. See Workspace section in this Info Pages Guide.

Please refer to the Mentoring Program Guidelines for information about shared responsibilities and best practices for setting and achieving goals. IEEE-related entities may include additional guidelines for implementing their specific program.

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Video Of Mentoring Process in One Minute! No audio, pause to review any specific slide or screenshot.