At KMP+ House of Mentoring we define mentoring as a mutual learning process, where both mentor and mentee learn through their collaboration. A successful learning partnership requires the right match between mentor and mentee. The good question is, how do you define the right match and the right matching criteria for your mentoring programme?
Chemistry and trust
“A right match is a match where both mentor and mentee get the desired benefit from the collaboration and where chemistry and trust are both present”, says matching expert Lise Krogh Løvschal, Senior Consultant and Partner at KMP+ House of Mentoring, who has many years of experience and a solid expertise with both selecting suitable mentors, matching, and mentors and mentees.
Having the right attitude
According to Lise Krogh Løvschal, the selection process of suitable mentors is similar to the recruitment process when hiring new employees. Lise always invites potential mentors for face-to-face interviews to get to know them well.
“It is important to ensure, that a potential mentor has the right attitude,” she points out. “I match based on their professional and personal background. The most important quality in a mentor, is that the person shows a genuine interest in other people. Mentoring should not be motivated by business recruitment interest. The essence of mentoring is professional and personal knowledge sharing and dialogue in a confidential and safe space, and it requires that both mentor and mentee are engaged and want to take part in the learning process.”
5 tips for the matching process
However, it can be difficult to know what you need to focus on when matching process. Lise Krogh Løvschal shares 5 tips to ensure the right match between mentor and mentee:
- Have in-depth interviews with mentors and mentees
It will give you a better understanding of who they are on a personal level and it will make it easier during the matching process to assess whether there will be good chemistry in the match. - Match mentee with a mentor, who have been through a similar career journey to the one that mentee is currently experiencing
This creates a solid base for exchanging of experiences and sharing knowledge in the mentor/mentee relationship.
- Match mentee with a mentor, that has empathy and relevant experience in relation to the mentee’s need
In relation to work-life-balance and job development, mentee might need professional as well as personal advice and guidance.
- Don’t match based on same industry or profession
Always look at mentor’s career journey and experience – mentor and mentee can learn a lot from each other without being in the same industry, and it may be an advantage not to share industry or professionalism.
- Facilitate alignment of expectations
The alignment of expectations should be preferably ready from the very beginning of the mentoring relationship, so that both agree on the benefit and the duration of the relationship, the frequency of meetings etc.
It is absolutely vital that mentor and mentee start by sharing and aligning expectations. Failing to do so may cause the mentoring relationship to fail.
