Informal Mentoring; Comparison to Formal Mentoring and My Lessons Learned.

Everyone needs a mentor, no matter what your level is. A lot of people in the industry offer it for free, some offer it as a paid service. It's an opportunity to leverage someones vast experience and knowledge to drive your career forward. And on the other side, being a mentor can be so rewarding and an opportunity to learn from people different to you and develop invaluable interpersonal skills you might not gain from your job.?

Definition of informal mentoring :?

"A less structured relationship between a mentor or mentee that is more than just giving ad hoc support (also known as flash mentoring). There really is no specific timeline for the mentorships."

Definition of formal mentoring :?

"A formal program which well-structured and organized and aligns with an organization’s goals and objectives. It usually has a definitive timeline to achieve the objectives"?

I was inspired to write this article based on this blog post on mentoring by Mark Dore who is?a Principal Consultant at Infinity Works.

If you don’t know a lot about me/my job I’d explain in brief detail. I’m a tech recruiter at a startup, my workload and time demands vary drastically. I also have depression, anxiety and ADHD so my executive function is extremely unpredictable. So when I’m informally mentoring, its a lot more flexible and suits my lifestyle better than formal mentoring.?

Informal Vs Formal Mentoring?

In my opinion, the key difference between formal and informal mentoring is the expectations and structure around the mentor/mentee relationship. None of the people I mentor have actually asked me to mentor them, which is interesting.?

The key differences :?

1. Informal mentoring is more natural. A mentor/mentee relationship in an informal setting is often built on?common interests or "chemistry". In short, you want to work with people you get on with well.
2. Informal mentoring is mentee-driven. My mentees find me, not the other way round. I empower them to take ownership of their progress
3. Its more flexible. As I mentioned above, my workload and mental health is unpredictable so informal mentoring helps me work around that.?
4. Formal mentoring can be better to support D&I efforts. Referring to point 1, if the relationship is strengthened by similarities, this could mean that people from under-represented groups struggle to relate to or find an informal mentor. Fortunately, tech is becoming more diverse so I think this will eventually be less of an issue.
5. Formal mentoring can be better structured with clear business objectives so can be more beneficial for the mentee. From my perspective, informal mentoring works better for me, but I do think about if my mentees would benefit more from a proper formal mentor? I’m not sure!?

Why and Who Do I Mentor??

As a recruiter, I’m often approached by people who are keen to break into the tech industry but are struggling to navigate the market. There’s shady practices in recruitment, people wanting to hire juniors with a degree and 3 years experience and exploitation left right and centre.?

Examples of reasons people have asked me for help :?

• “I applied for a junior role which was advertised at ￡28K and they’ve offered me ￡22K. I’m gutted and they haven’t given a good enough reason to cut the salary by that much. What should I do to negotiate?”?
• “I finished at a bootcamp a few months ago and I’m struggling to navigate the market. I’ve reached out to their careers team multiple times and keep getting ignored.”?
• “I just can’t seem to get into the Web Developing industry, and it’s upsetting me quite a bit because I just don’t know what I have to possibly do to even be noticed. I honestly feel like giving up”
• “I’m non-binary and I’ve had a bad experience recently where a company kept mid-gendering me and treated me like a token who could drive the D&I efforts in the company instead of being hired to write code. How do I find the companies that are less old fashioned and more forward thinking?”?
• “I have autism and ADHD and I’m really struggling when it comes to interviews. I’m quite confident in my abilities but I bomb it when it comes to the high pressure environment”?

I believe I have a moral obligation to help others even if I don’t make money from it. We’ve spent the last 18 months in a global pandemic, people have lost their jobs, stable income and some have decided in a career change and I believe everyone deserves a fair shot at life. I earn enough in my day job to not have to charge for it, and I wouldn’t like to because the people who need my help are often people out of a job anyway.?

My Lessons Learned From Informal Mentoring

Set effective boundaries and rules of engagement?

• Agree on how you’d both like to communicate, mine is mainly quick questions through message, and a mentee calls once every week/fortnight. Some people mainly prefer communication via WhatsApp so ask at the beginning.
• Agree timelines on when to expect a response by.

Facilitation, not teaching

• Its tempting to want to dig out information for someone. Resist that temptation. You'll probably know the old saying "Give a person a fish and they'll eat for a day, teach them to fish and they'll eat for life".
• Enabling someone to be able to find the answers for themselves will set them up so much better for life. The internet is such a black hole of information so sometimes a nudge in the right direction will save them so much time but you're still facilitating, not teaching.

Accept that you won’t have all of the answers.?

• Unless you're a self proclaimed guru in your field with 30 years of experience, you probably won't have all the answers. Don't let this stop you, anyone can mentor without knowing everything.
• Get comfortable with saying "I don’t know enough about that topic to give a confident answer". You don't sound clueless or incompetent. You're still a credible professional. You can always advice on where they can find that information or a better person to ask. Eg I'm a recruiter I'm not going to know which AWS cert is the best one to do first.

Use a scheduling tool like Calendly

How I lived without Calendly I do not know. All you busy people need it!!

This is what my booking page looks like :

• I have different availability for each type of event, mentee calls are generally available to book at the start and end of the day so its outside of my usual work hours.
• The free version of Calendly allows you to have 1 type of event but as I use Calendly heavily for work I pay for the premium version ($10 per month) so I can have multiple types of events with different availabilities.
• My mentee calls are only available first or last thing so it doesn't interfere with my work day.
• My mentees know that my work keeps me busy and I might take a day or two to reply. They know that if they have a more pressing matter, they can nudge me.?
• Effective boundaries are absolutely essential for all aspects of life, both personal and work. Read more here?

Identify someone who you can form a partnership with

• I'm a tech recruiter, I am also a novice coder. But I'm not qualified enough to confidently advice on in-depth tech related questions.
• I have a bit of a partnership with a guy who has 20+ years experience in the field who is as enthusiastic about mentoring as I am, When a mentee needs support in an area I can't help with but he can, I send them his way (for example pairing sessions).

Consider what you're gaining from mentoring

• I don't believe anyone who says they truly do something out of the goodness of their heart. It could be their main motivation (as it is for me). But we always want to know what we're getting out it. You're giving up your time and expertise, for free in my case, so you should be gaining something else in return and thats okay to want it!
• Listen to this podcast by Pauline Narvas on "Paying it forward". Thats exactly what I ask my mentees to do.
• I ask for a LinkedIn recommendation in return, its nice to have something different from the usual placed candidates.
• One of my mentees became my pillar of support for ADHD when I didn't have anyone else to ask for advice. That was definitely a real 2 way relationship and I'm very grateful for her help!
• Having a purpose is one of the key pillars of improving your mental health. My day job definitely fulfills this, but mentoring people who are under-represented in tech and supporting them in the journey to breaking into the industry is just so much more rewarding to me.

Don't underestimate the power of being a friendly face and someone's cheerleader

• I genuinely believe a huge part of being a good mentor is just being kind, being a friend and giving them tonnes of encouragement.
• People trying to secure their first job in tech encounter so many rejections and setbacks. I'm a recruiter, I've been getting used to this every day for the last 3 years, the people I speak to have not. Resilience is not something that comes easy.
• Keep reminding them of how far they've come. In one mentee call this week, I told them about how much happier and confident they sounded, and they were over the moon. They won't notice these things but you will.

My Advice To Mentees

• Use social media to identify who you want to mentor you. Does their personal brand resonate with you? Are they specialised in the field you need support with?
• Don't actually ask someone "Can you mentor me". Just ask for advice and support and see where it goes from there. The second you ask that question it puts pressure on the person and becomes a formal mentoring relationship which might not be what they want/can do.
• If they ask you for a testimonial in return, please do it. If they're not charging you they're asking for 3 minutes to write a testimonial in exchange for hours of free support.
• Enjoy the process, you'll hopefully make a friend out of it and learn lots of new things!
• Be proactive and self organising. Take ownership of your journey and self development.
• Keep your mentors updated on your wins! We love hearing about it, no matter how small.

In Summary?

Its difficult to quantify what exactly is so rewarding about mentoring, but I do find it very rewarding so its something I’ll keep doing as long as I can.?If you can spare 1-3 hours of your free time, I’d highly recommend it.

If you're like me and from an under-represented group in tech (I'm an Indian woman), theres other people like you who are looking for someone who understands them and they can relate to. Be the person you needed growing up.

If you’re reading this and feel like you’d benefit from some support from me, reach out! Got any further questions on informal mentoring? I'm all ears.

Thanks for reading and keep your eyes peeled for the next article which is going to be on “How to craft a powerful introduction message to grow your network”.

Take care,

Parul x