In the latest in a series of columns dedicated to mentoring, we look at how to use mentoring to support graduate programmes in your organisation. This issue: moving up the career ladder
Lis Merrick
Is your graduate scheme preparing mentees for the world or leaving them in a void?
This issue, I am getting on my soapbox about graduate mentoring programmes. Many organisations think their mentoring schemes for graduates are working fine, when in reality they are complacent, badly designed examples of poor practice that can forever put young people off more formally organised mentoring. I find this quite sad.
Here are some of the things I’ve observed in such programmes:
Inconsistent and over-competitive ‘X Factor’-style sponsorship practices between mentors
Over-assertive mentees who think they are owed a good push up the career ladder by their mentor, leave the latter feeling inadequate
No support for when the graduate leaves the programme and has the tougher transition into a ‘real’ job. The mentoring programme finishes and the graduate is suddenly in a support void
Lack of engagement from mentees and mentors as the mentees, and certainly some of the mentors, are ‘press-ganged’ into the programme, with no voluntarism
Frustrated mentors who feel their mentees have nothing to talk about
Leaving the development of the programme to the individual responsible for graduate recruitment, who has no real experience of developing or managing mentoring, hence the mentoring participants missing out on a powerful two-way learning experience.
Graduate mentoring programmes vary widely in their approach, purpose and intended outcomes, but here are some useful questions to ask to enable effective scheme designs:
1. What outputs do you want? Happy, contented graduates who stay with the organisation, or are you thinking of supporting graduates’ emotional and physical transitions? Have you helped the mentee to think and be aware of what these might be? Many mentors are underused in this type of programme as the mentee is in a state of unconscious incompetence and the mentor does not have enough knowledge or empathy to challenge them properly.
2. What roles will the mentor use to support the mentee? Some programmes will cover a two to three-year span, with different rotations, perhaps different locations or an overseas assignment and varying learning needs as the mentee develops. Should the mentor be flexible or does the mentee need more than one mentor during the programme’s life cycle?
3. How do we clarify expectations? Is the mentor also acting as a sponsor to the graduate to provide the necessary entrees to organisational life? Is the mentee expecting introductions, access to the mentor’s network and help in getting a job if it is not guaranteed? Will some mentors want to provide this? Even if the scheme is not communicated in this way? Mentors can be highly competitive for their mentee. Importantly, is the mentee expecting this?
4. How long should the programme last? Have you thought of the support the graduate entrant needs as they go into their first role? Should the mentoring programme overlap between the graduate programme and the six to twelve months of their new role after the programme finishes?
5. Finally, does the programme organiser know what they are doing? Make sure this is not just a bolt-on to their day job. If it is, then get them the support they may need.
Next issue: Springtime health check
Lis Merrick is a consultant and visiting fellow of the Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit at Sheffield Business School. She welcomes correspondence on anything to do with mentoring. Contact: Lismerrick@coach mentoring.co.uk
Coaching at Work, Volume 9, Issue 2