Since our launch earlier this year, many students had the chance to talk to a mentor from MentorCruise . When a mentorship is formally established, it can be difficult to get immediate value. Some advice and tips.

Due to the nature of MentorCruise mentorships, it can be a challenge to get immediate value. Mentor and mentee have to get to know each other and results are often seen longer term. With a handful of easy to implement tips, this can change.

Establish a baseline

As a mentee, you should tell your mentor what your previous experience is and where you want to go right at the beginning. Tell them about what you have learned, what you liked, what you disliked.

It will help your mentor to give you better advice and look at the next steps. Keep in mind, that a mentor doesn’t know your history, so be honest and sincere.

Be proactive

This is something that especially younger or insecure students regularly struggle with: Don’t wait until your mentor asks you for feedback or a status, just tell them!

Mentors are usually very busy people, but they do like to take time for you! If they don’t know that you need their attention, they won’t give it to you. It’s as simple as: “Hey XY, I’ve done the course you recommended me. Do you know any more?”

Set goals

It’s not only good for yourself, but also for your mentor, to know what your goals are. This should be long-term or short-term. Examples for short-term goals could be for example: - Take an introduction course to JavaScript- Get in-depth with Python- Get an internship- Write a blog post While long-term goals can be bigger. Either way, it’ll help your mentor to know where you want to go: - Be CEO of a multi-million business- Become a Lead Engineer at Google- Write a bestselling book While these goals could be projected to be reached in 10+ years, it does help to set the base for it right now.

MentorCruise is an education marketplace with the goal to connect aspiring students in Software Engineering, Data Science, Design and Business with experienced mentors.