Mentors are not Job Portals!

There, I said it!

In the world of buzz words that we currently live in, one buzzword that I have especially heard within the health sector, in my country and globally is #Mentorship. Currently this seems to be positioned as the solution to the many challenges the sector is facing particularly in relation to employment, human resource for health, youth involvement etc.

However, in my experience, having been a mentor and mentee, both on an individual capacity and through different mentorship programs I think there are some aspects of this concept that need to be spelled out a bit more clearly especially for the upcoming young health professionals.

1.????The Purpose of Mentorship

A mentor is supposed to be a guide. Someone who shares their experiences and answers relevant questions. Someone who can connect the mentee to other mentors when required. Someone who can provide the necessary technical resources for growth and capacity building (financial resources should by no means be an expectation!).

As the title of the article suggests, a mentor is not meant to be a job portal or a recruitment agency. While a mentor may be able to highlight certain opportunities to the mentee – getting someone a job is many a times an unrealistic expectation from the mentees (though possible depending on the progression of the mentor-mentee relationship). A mentor also can perhaps review your CV and provide feedback but expecting the mentor to share your CV around is probably unrealistic as well.

2.????Mentorship must be Mentee-Driven

I cannot emphasize on this enough. Having been on both sides of this spectrum the one thing I have learned is that while Mentors may be nice enough to follow up with mentees regarding certain aspects (and you're very lucky if you find a mentor who is able to do this), this should also not be an expectation. Many of the mentors are highly experienced (and busy) individuals (which is why one selects them to be a Mentor to start with) and so the mentee must have a clear focus and purpose in mind and engage with the Mentor effectively to make the most of the Mentor-Mentee relationship.

3.????Communication about the Structure must be clear

Mentors have different styles for mentoring and the nature of the structure of the Mentor-Mentee relationship also depends on whether it is on an individual basis or part of some formal mentorship program. If it is on an individual basis, communicate and set up some kind of structure for the relationship. Make sure expectations are clear and discussed very early on. Some may prefer a more formal nature, some an informal and some a hybrid modality.

If it is a formal mentorship program, then it must be structured and coordinated. Some effort needs to go into guiding the process (often by a neutral coordinator of sorts). This includes setting up objectives, ensuring scheduling of meetings and touch-points, tracking progress etc. I have seen mentorship programs not achieve much due to the absence of this.

4.????Mentorship must have tangible outputs

Now this is probably more for the formal mentorship programs compared to individual Mentor-Mentee relationships however as a principle I think it is much more valuable when there are tangible outputs identified. Is there a particular skill one wants to grow? What can be the tangible evidence of the success of the relationship? How do we know it’s going well? Document this at the start of the Mentor-Mentee relationship and track progress throughout.

Overall, I do agree that Mentorship can be a very powerful tool especially in guiding the future of the health (and any other) sector. The changing dynamics of the different sectors and markets require an element of professional experience sharing so that the young (and in-service) professionals can learn and make the most effective decisions regarding their career pathways.

However, aside from the hype around this topic currently we need to be realistic about how we set these connections up. ?

P.S.

- A future article will also talk about the concept of “Networking” which I also see is grossly misunderstood by many young professionals.

- If you want to see my feedback about an amazing mentorship program that I was recently a part of see this link: https://www.ctiexchange.org/post/mentorship-an-essential-factor-to-catalyze-contraceptive-technology-innovations