In order to be able to support their mentee, mentors should have some experience of developing others. We would also expect mentors to have the professional background to able to support colleagues from a place of credibility.

However, this does not mean mentors need to have held the most senior roles in HE. The level of experience required will depend on the needs of the mentee. We anticipate most AUA mentees will be looking for support in one or more of the following areas:

– New professionals
– New to the sector
– Moving into management
– Seeking new opportunities
– Taking the step up to senior leadership
– Support with interpersonal relationships
– Seeking wellbeing, resilience and work/life balance support
– Career development planning

Here is a brief list of some of the characteristics a good mentor will possess:

Self awareness – you should have a good understanding of your own strengths and development needs.

Accessibility – you should be open and approachable, and willing and able to commit sufficient time to your mentee to offer support and guidance.

Communication – you should be a good communicator who is able to empathise with others and can understand different backgrounds, perspectives and approaches. You should be a great listener.

Trustworthiness – you should keep confidences and follow up on promises.

Encouraging – you should be able to recognise accomplishments and point out positive traits.

A desire to help others develop – you should understand how individuals develop and be able to assist them in understanding their current strengths and weaknesses and setting future goals.

The new mentoring platform will use an algorithm to automatically match mentees to mentors based on the responses you both give on your application forms.

Once the mentee has submitted their form, they will be given a selection of mentors to choose from. At this stage the mentor will be notified and will have the opportunity to review the mentee application and accept or decline the match.

The matching system will have selected you based on the answers you provided on your application form, and further, the mentee will have read your biography and chosen you as the best match from their shortlist.

It is likely therefore that you may be able to help, but perhaps not with all the things the mentee has included on their form. At the first meeting you can discuss with your mentee that you will only be able to focus on the areas you feel you are able to support. Once this mentorship period has come to a close, it will be possible for the mentee to apply again and seek a different mentor to help them achieve their other objectives.

Meetings should take place in a mutually agreeable space. This may be in person or online. If a mentee selects a mentor from the other side of the country it is reasonable to expect that all meetings will take place online via a platform like Zoom.

Our mentoring platform will maintain a confidential record of who you have mentored through your time as an AUA mentor. It will also store records of chat messages between you and your mentees. Through the chat function, you will be able to share documents and other summaries/records of your meetings.

We will provide mentors with two document templates:

– A mentoring agreement template – to be completed following the initial meeting where the objectives for the mentoring relationship are set.

– A meeting summary template – which can be optionally completed following every meeting, summarising what was discussed.