Questions from Mentors

From September we will match at regular intervals. The program year officially starts on November 28th. Please note that we have about 3 times more mentors in the network than mentees and we cannot guarantee a match. Thank you for your understanding. As a mentor (whether with or without a mentee) you are a valuable member of our community!

1. MATCHING PROCESS:
After you have filled out and submitted the mentor form, you will join our pool. We will then work on the matching. If you are already a mentor, we would be happy to suggest a new mentee. After we have found the most suitable mentee for you and she has agreed to you as a mentor, we will send you her mentee form and her CV. If you also agree with her as a mentor, we will match. Both of you will then receive an official matching email with further information and an invitation to kick off or online onboarding.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We match primarily based on the match of the industry in which you work as a mentor and in which the mentee wants to work or position himself. It is NOT IMPORTANT that you are older or have completed the same degree as your mentee!

2. MENTORING KICK OFF (November): You get to know your mentee personally at the kick off at the beginning of the program year or via online onboarding in the following months (if you start the program later). We will introduce you to the mentoring and together you will clarify the expectations, goals and limits of your mentoring. Finally, you sign a joint mentoring agreement.

3. MENTORING SESSIONS (December to October of the following year): After the kick-off, you will be available to advise your mentee once a month for approx. 1 hour – in personal meetings or via telephone/Skype. You give her insights into the world of work and work practice, support her with her professional orientation, with applications and network her with your contacts. You don’t set your own agenda, you don’t want to push the mentee in one direction or impose your own professional path. You are there to accompany and advise them on their way into their career or career. It’s best if you also have feedback talks about mentoring from time to time (What’s going on? What do you wish for?) and evaluate the previous approach and goals for the rest of the time together at the half-way point.

4. MENTORING END (October of the following year): You evaluate your mentoring year together (What went well? What could have been better?). In the best case, you will be matched with a new mentee from November – when the new program year begins. From now on you are welcome to remain in loose contact and in the best case scenario your former mentee will now become a mentor herself.

Our mentors have at least 5 years of professional experience in an industry or professional activity (however, traineeships and working student activities do not count). They come from sectors such as (social) entrepreneurship, strategy, communication, environmental and economic consulting, ministries, politics and political consulting, NGOs and think tanks, foundations and associations, development cooperation, TV and print journalism, film, blogging, public Relations, public affairs, human resources and personnel development, art, culture and digital economy, event management, sales, university and adult education, coaching and training, health, change and diversity management and many more.

Our mentors work in companies and organizations such as: Adelphi, Adidas, AOK, Foreign Office, Bitkom, Federal Press Office, Bundestag, Federal Ministry of Defense, Federal Employment Agency, Deloitte, Deutsche Welle, Die Welt, DKB, EditionF, Enorm Magazin, European Commission, EY, refugee shelter Berlin, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, start-up scene, Hexal, German Historical Museum, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, KPMG, PWC, Siemens, Sparkasse, Tagesspiegel, Talents4Good, Unicef, Vice Magazine, Zalando etc.

Our mentees are committed and motivated students, graduates and young professionals. The median age is 28, with the younger ones being 24 and the older being around 34. They are very diverse! We also have young mothers, women of color, women with migration experience and mentees from different countries. In order to meet the challenges these women have to face in their professional lives, we offer them additional services such as the peer-to-peer group “MentoringMoms”.

Yes. You can already indicate in the mentor form whether your mentee should have a certain background, such as migration experience, a woman of color, with international roots or a socially disadvantaged environment. In the course of the matching process, we will send you the form and the CV of a mentee. At the same time, we send the mentee your form. We will only match you to a mentoring team if you both give each other a “go” as a mentor and mentee. This means: if you do not want mentoring with the mentee we have suggested, we will try to match you with someone else.

The mentee’s contribution to the success of the mentoring is that SHE SELF sees herself as the proactive part! As a mentor, you make an incredibly valuable contribution with your commitment – and should therefore not have to “follow” the mentee. Rather, the mentee should ask you for mentoring sessions. It is best to arrange a new appointment for the coming month at the end of each mentoring session. Please make it clear to your mentee whether you prefer “open” or “structured” mentoring. With the former, she can ask you whatever questions are on her mind without any preparation. With structured mentoring, she should think about topics that she wants to discuss and/or questions that she then asks you in advance. Last but not least: the mentee should adapt to your time and location.

We are happy to provide our mentors with tools that they can use to prepare and support the mentoring sessions with their mentees, such as protocol templates for mentees to document the mentoring sessions, reflection exercises, SWOT and strengths analysis tools, etc.

We offer our mentors a lot for their voluntary commitment, because one thing is clear: MentorMe would not be possible without them! In short this means:

• Access to our mentor network
• Personal networking with other mentors
• Access to all MentorMe events
• Training for mentors
• Get-togethers for mentors
• Participation in sweepstakes

The complete program and the calendar of the current program year can be found in detail under “Program” and is constantly updated.

Yes! We have many mentees and mentors from all over Germany and beyond. Since we primarily match our mentoring teams in terms of content and not regionally (unless someone explicitly wants the mentee or mentor to come from the same region), many mentoring sessions take place via Skype or telephone. In addition, many of our training and networking offers for our mentees and mentors are broadcast online. However, we recommend coming to Berlin at least for the kick-off of the program year so that the mentee and mentor can get to know each other personally.

Yes! We keep getting inquiries from interested people who want to become mentors and have missed the admission phase before the start of the program, the kick-off at the start of the program and the first months of the program. These are then noted in our waiting list. If we have mentees on the waiting list who have not yet been matched and are a good match for you as a mentor, we will be happy to start the matching process with you.

Yes! If you and your mentee are willing to hold part of the mentoring via Skype or telephone, that’s no problem at all. We also stream many of our training and networking opportunities for mentees and mentors via Skype, so you too can participate while you’re traveling or abroad.

Although it rarely happens, it can happen that the mentoring – be it for personal or professional reasons – does not materialize. Then we first try to find a solution for the mentee and mentor with the help of our MentorMe mediator. In most cases, this mediation helps and the mentoring can continue without any ambiguity. However, if that doesn’t help either, we’ll end the mentoring at this point and be happy to match you again.

none! Our mentors pay nothing for MentorMe membership and our services: mentoring, training and networking. This is a matter of course for us, because without your great commitment MentorMe would not be possible!

If mentors want to become mentees themselves – because they want to reposition themselves in their profession – they pay the mentee fee for graduates and young professionals after one year of active mentoring.

The only MentorMe service that is not part of the program and stands on its own are our webinars. These cost a small participation fee. If the mentor has become a mentor through a business cooperation, the webinars are also free!

As a social enterprise, we want to place as little financial burden on our mentees as possible. The contributions of our mentees therefore only cover our basic costs. Other costs are covered by partnerships and grants.

We have three mentee fees to be paid after successful matching:

• Mentee fee 1: €778 incl. VAT – Applies to mentees who earn more than €1600/month (gross).
• Mentee fee 2: €534 incl. VAT – Applies to mentees earning less than €1600/month (gross) and to mentees who are also mentor.
• Mentee fee 3: €411 incl. VAT – Applies to mentees who were already mentees in previous program years.