With close to 1,000 volunteer mentors supporting business leaders across more than 120 cohorts each year, mentor matching is a key part of Help to Grow.
Participants are encouraged to choose a mentor who feels right for them, but the process can sometimes feel daunting. Alongside running their business, juggling personal commitments and beginning the course, participants are selecting from hundreds of experienced mentors on the platform. The Mentor Relationship Advisor (MRA) team is therefore on hand to support the matching process.
There are three ways mentorships are typically matched on the programme.
Self-matches: when participants choose their own mentor
The most common route is a self-match, where the participant selects their own mentor directly through the platform.
Participants browse available mentor profiles, shortlist a few candidates and arrange discovery calls before requesting the mentor they would like to work with.
These discovery calls usually last around 30 minutes and are designed to help both parties decide whether the partnership feels like a good fit. The participant may describe their current business challenges or opportunities, while the mentor can outline how their experience might be relevant and what their mentoring approach typically looks like. Practical details such as meeting cadence and format can also be discussed at this stage.
Participants can see mentors who have marked themselves as available on the platform. Depending on the time of year, this may mean choosing from hundreds of experienced mentors, which is why some participants welcome additional guidance.
Assisted matches: when MRAs help narrow the field
If participants would like support identifying potential mentors, the MRA team can help by assembling a shortlist of suitable mentors.
This is known as an assisted match. MRAs work with participants to understand what they are looking for from a mentor and suggest a small number of candidates whose experience and availability appear to align well.
Participants still take the lead from there, arranging discovery calls and deciding which mentor they would like to request. The role of the MRA is simply to make the process easier to navigate.
Brokered matches: ensuring every participant can access mentoring~
Some participants reach their Module 3 session without having secured a mentor. This milestone, set by the programme’s funder, ensures that participants have sufficient time to complete their ten hours of mentoring alongside the course modules.
In these cases, MRAs may create a brokered match to ensure the participant has the opportunity to benefit from mentoring within the programme timeframe.
Where possible, brokered matches are informed by the participant’s profile information. If information is limited, MRAs may also review publicly available sources, such as the participant’s company website, LinkedIn profile or Companies House record to understand their role and likely needs.
In these cases, as for self and assisted matches, the match is provisional. A discovery call still takes place before mentoring begins and both mentor and participant can decide whether the relationship feels like the right fit.
A note on mentor availability
Mentors on the platform can set their availability status and the number of mentees they are able to support at one time. Keeping these settings up to date is important because they determine whether mentors appear in participant searches and help MRAs understand who may have capacity for additional mentorships.
Keeping an open mind
Some mentors prefer not to be broker-matched and would rather work with participants who have proactively requested to pair with them. While mentors are always free to decline a match if it does not feel appropriate, we encourage them to have a discovery call where their capacity allows.
Interestingly, programme data shows that broker-matched mentorships complete with only marginally less mentoring time on average than self-matched mentorships. In practice, many of these pairings go on to become highly productive relationships.
Mentoring often contains an element of serendipity. Keeping an open mind about who you might work with can lead to unexpectedly valuable conversations and learning for both mentor and participant.
Supporting successful mentoring relationships
With hundreds of participants joining the programme each term, the MRA team’s role is to ensure that every participant has the opportunity to work with a suitable mentor and make the most of their mentoring hours.
If you ever have questions about a match, the MRA team is always happy to help. Contact us at hello@helptogrowmentor.com.
Author: Franceska Jones