Cameron Executive Network

MentorGuide to Mentoring

Spring 2018

Cameron School of Business

Office of External Programs

University of North Carolina Wilmington

With contributions by Cameron Executive Network Members

© 2015Cameron School of Business, University of North Carolina Wilmington.

All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Topic / Section / Page
Introduction / 1 / 2
Considerations for each Mentee / 1.1 / 3
Considerations for each Mentor / 1.2 / 4
Joint Planning for Mentor and Mentee / 1.3 / 5
The Mentoring Process / 2 / 5
Stage One: Base Building / 2.1 / 5
Initial Contact / 2.1.1 / 5
First Meeting / 2.1.2 / 5
Future Meetings / 2.1.3 / 7
Stage Two: Selecting Career Paths / 2.2 / 7
Stage Three: Selecting Potential Employers or Grad School / 2.3 / 7
Stage Four: Reaching Those Employers and Grad School / 2.4 / 8
Stage Five: Post Graduation / 2.5 / 8
Contact with Mentor / 2.5.1 / 8
Tips for First Job / 2.5.2 / 8
Career Tips / 2.5.3 / 8
Networking and Building Relationships / 2.5.3.1 / 8
Elevator Speech / 2.5.3.2 / 9
Career Plans / 2.5.3.3 / 9
Finances and Workplace Benefits / 2.5.3.4 / 9
Additional Resources / 2.5.3.5 / 9
Feedback / 3 / 9
Mentoring Relationship Issues / 3.1 / 9
Expected Mentor Protocol / 3.2 / 9
Feedback and Requests and Suggestions / 3.3 / 9
Periodic Surveys / 3.4 / 9
CEN Student Alumni Post-Graduation Contact Information / 3.5 / 9
Update Current Information / 3.6 / 10
Alumni Lifetime Email / 3.7 / 10
Networking Opportunities / 3.8 / 10
Investors Round Table ofWilmington / 3.9 / 10
Generational Awareness for Mentors / 11

This Guide embodies “best practices” developed by CEN’s mentors and mentees. CEN does not require that its mentors and mentees follow these practices. ButCEN does require that they carefully consider these practices. The best results occur when mentor and mentee jointly pick the parts of this Guide that will best serve their mentoring relationship and fit the student’s individual needs.

Mentoring is interactive. A mentor shouldn’t simply “tell” information to a listener. Nor should a mentee just listen passively. Both must actively work together to match the mentor’s experience and wisdom to the mentee’s talents and needs.

  1. Introduction

This Guide is for mentors of the Cameron Executive Network (CEN) of the Cameron School of Business (CSB) at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). Since 2002 CEN’s experienced business executives have worked with CSB students, staff and faculty to interact with and advise college juniors and seniors through resume assistance, job and career searches, developing skills and guest lecturing and, most importantly, mentoring. CEN executives have mentored on a one-on-one basis over 750 CSB students – a priceless contribution to students and a great reward to mentors.

1.1.Considerations for Each Mentee

Take charge of your own career, including actively guiding your relationship with your mentor. Do not expect your mentor to find you a job; finding and landing a job is your responsibility.

CEN expects you to pick a career matched to your talents and passions, to become a leader in your career, to live a fulfilling life and to serve society well and ethically. To start towards these goals while at UNCW, CEN expects you to:

  • Contact your mentor within five days after you are matched and be prompt, diligent and professional in all your communications with your mentor.
  • Review this Guide carefully, agree with your mentor on objectives you should achieve to reach your goals, and meet those objectives on schedule.
  • Agree with your mentor on a schedule for your meetings, and meet as scheduled.
  • Unless excused by your mentor, attend scheduled meetings with your mentor and scheduled CEN events where all mentees are invited.
  • Grow and maintain your personal network as a resource for reaching your goals.
  • Continue to participate in CEN after graduation by keeping CEN up-to-date on how you can be reached and where you are working. Be available to CSB students to talk about your career and their interests.

Mentors are volunteers. They contribute their time, wisdom and experience. They want to help CSB students. Respect this. Use their time wisely. Thank them for their contributions.

Commit the time needed to develop and sustain a good relationship with your mentor and to reach your goals. Allow time to build the relationship.

Be professional. Give real thought to what you want to achieve. Make commitments only when you can live up to them. Live up to commitments you make.

Respond promptly to each contact by the mentor. Initiate contacts to keep your mentor up to date on your situation and progress. Adopt a “learning” attitude about the information shared. Acknowledge feedback about strengths and weaknesses. Express your thoughts and feelings about the feedback and directions you are receiving. Feel free to engage your mentor in a robust discussion. Whenever you do not understand what your mentor is saying, ask.

Go to the first meeting with ideas about what you want to accomplish from the relationship. Develop strong focused plans for action you and your mentor think should be accomplished. Take responsibility for implementing your action plan. Be accountable for your results, your behavior and any changes asked of you.

Attend each meeting on time with an idea of what you hope to accomplish at that meeting. Prepare your own agenda for each meeting. Report to the mentor your progress on the objectives set at the last meeting. At the end of each meeting reach an agreement with your mentor on objectives to be completed before the next meeting.

If you are not satisfied with how your mentoring relationship is working, promptly notify a member of the CEN leadership group (see below).

1.2.Considerations for Each Mentor

CEN expects you to lead each of your mentees to reach the goals describe above. In doing this you should lead them in learning appropriate values, processes and skills, in setting appropriate action plans and in making wise decisions. CEN relies on your integrity, wisdom, judgment, commitment, good will and professionalism in leading each mentee.

Don’t forget how busy the mentee’s schedule can be. Learn promptly what academic, work, family obligations and other extra-curricular activities impact each mentee’s schedule.

Allow time to build the relationship. Keep your mentee focused on the issues, yet keep it fun (enjoy getting to know them and sharing your life experiences). Help mentees find their own answers rather than telling them what to do. Maintain an appropriate balance between talking and listening to the mentee. Use questions to help mentees refine and improve their ideas and plans. Encourage comments by your mentee and questions about your thoughts.

Insure that the action plans developed are agreeable to both of you. Follow up on implementation. Encourage as necessary.

Remember they are students. They did not grow up in your household with your expectations. They do not have your experience. They don’t know what they don’t know, so they need you to teach them.

Maintain an appropriate professional yet personal relationship with each mentee. Set parameters for interaction. If your mentee has interests in subjects outside your expertise, work with the mentee to make that expertise available from other Mentors or from experts outside CEN.

Attend meetings of CEN and, when students are invited, make sure your mentees know of the meeting and, when possible, attend.

If you are not satisfied with how your mentoring relationship is working, promptly notify a member of the CEN leadership group (see below).

1.3.Joint Planning for Mentor and Mentee.

The remainder of this Guide addresses some common issues in CEN mentoring relationships and presents materials to consider. Each mentee and mentor should review these materials independently, and then meet and discuss which, if any, of the Guide’s suggestions to adopt and implement. Please let CEN know what practices are most helpful, and least helpful, to your work together. CEN expects to revise this Guide periodically to capture the “best practices” in mentoring as members develop them.

  1. The Mentoring Process. The processes described below constitute CEN’s “best practices” for the mentor and mentee to work through their mentoring relationship before the mentee graduates.

2.1.Stage One: Base Building. Mentor and mentee need to exchange significant information. What do you love to do? What do you hate to do? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are the mentee’s career interests?

2.1.1.Initial Contact. Within 5 daysafter CEN emails the mentee with the name of his or her assigned mentor, the mentee should contact the mentor to agree on a time and place for their first face-to-face meeting. Ideally, that meeting should occur within 2 weeks. A mentor who fails to hear from the mentee within 30 days should notify CEN.

2.1.2.First Meeting.

Mentor: Before the meeting, the mentor should review and consider whether or not to use some or all of the following:

  • Job Search Plan (Exhibit A; all Exhibit references are to attachments to this Guide and available on CEN’s resource page
  • Mentee Exercise (Exhibit B)
  • UNCW Mentee Worksheet (Exhibit C)
  • Mentoring Agreement (Exhibit D). We recommend that you use the Mentoring Agreement but do not require it.

It would also be helpful for the mentor to give the mentee in writing the mentor’s contact information, including the best email address and phone number for the mentee to use. Consider whether it will be useful to give the mentee a written summary of the mentor’s weekly schedule and any significant travel plans or other commitments during the current semester. Consider also telling the mentee your expectations and goals for the mentoring relationship.

Questions a Mentor Might Ask. Here are some questions a mentor might ask:

  • Have you read this Guide for Mentors and Mentees? Do you have any questions?
  • What parts of the Guide seem useful? What parts don’t seem useful?
  • What is your major? Discuss classes you have taken to date, are now taking and expect to take in future semesters.
  • Summarize your activities and class academic performance in high school and in college.
  • What are your near-term goals (next 6 months to 1 year)? What are your longer-term goals (1 year to 3 years)? Consider that goals should be stretch goals with a reasonable chance of being attainable.
  • What are your expectations from the mentoring program and your mentor?
  • How often should you meet and where? The mentee should provide his or her school and work schedule each semester (including school vacations) so the two of you can plan.
  • Is there anything immediate to tell the mentor? This might include internship or job search concerns.
  • What are the student’s strengths? This should include the student’s perceptions and a combination of perceptions from the student’s family, friends, co-workers and supervisors.
  • What are the student’s weaknesses? This should include the student’s perceptions and a combination of perceptions from the student’s family, friends, co-workers and supervisors.
  • How can the mentor help the student take advantage of those strengths and reduce or manage those weaknesses?
  • Where is the student from? What makes the student tick? Include input on the student’s family and their history.
  • Does the student have any questions to ask or other information to tell the mentor? In this process there are no “dumb” questions.
  • Have you visited Teresa Walker our Director of Work Practice?
  • Have you visited the Career Center?

Agenda. Mentor and mentee should consider including the following items in their agenda. Mentee and mentor should feel free to challenge each other on achieving the “desired result”, whatever that may be. Both should willingly commit to work toward the desired results agreed on.

  • Review the mentee’s resume, background, skills, weaknesses, career interests and expectations from this mentoring.
  • Discuss individual expectations you both have about this mentoring relationship.
  • Discuss and consider whether the mentee should take any of the assessments offered by UNCW’s Career Services office (see “Resources” above).
  • Discuss developing a list of results you and the student expect to achieve.
  • Discuss and decide on whether the Mentoring Agreement (Exhibit D) would be useful to both of you.

Results. By the end of the first meeting, the mentor and mentee should agree on at least the following:

  • The best way to communicate (e.g., by email, phone or text message).
  • The time and place of their next meeting.
  • What objectives the mentee should complete before the next meeting? What will the mentee do? When will the mentee do it? Where and how will the mentee get started?
  • How frequently they should meet in person?
  • Should the mentee report to the mentor before the next meeting?

2.1.3.Future Meetings. At each meeting, mentor and mentee should review progress since the last meeting and by the end of the current meeting agree on the following:

  • The time and place of their next meeting.
  • What objectives the mentee should complete before their next meeting.
  • Whether the mentee should report to the mentor before the next meeting.

2.2.Stage Two:Selecting Career Paths. What does the information about the mentee suggest as possible careers? Many mentees haven’t yet decided on a career path. Some mentees who have decided may not know enough about a particular career to have made an informed decision. In both cases, a mentor should discuss this issue with the mentee. They should jointly decide what further research would be useful before picking a particular career. Some mentors have guided mentees through industry and company research so the mentee got a better understanding of what it would be like to work in a particular career. Consider whether this would be helpful.

2.3.Stage Three: Selecting Potential Employers or Graduate Schools Once a career track is chosen, the mentee needs to select specific employers or graduate schools to pursue. The mentee should research the selected employers and other companies in the selected industry or field. The mentee should rank the employers he or she prefers and then prepare with the mentor a plan for making contact with each selected employer. If a mentee is considering graduate school it is important to take the appropriate exam such as the GRE® (Graduate Record Exam), GMAT (Graduate Admission Test) or LSAT (The Law School Admission Test). Information about numerous graduate school opportunities at UNCW is available online at

2.4.Stage Four: Reaching Those Employers and Graduate Schools. Mentor and mentee should develop a plan for the mentee to reach targeted employers and schools. As part of this plan, the mentor and mentee should work on the mentee’s resume, cover letter, networking skills and interviewing skills. The mentee should research in detail prospective employers and prepare to:

  • answer questions an employer is likely to ask, whether in a telephone or face-to-face interview
  • ask questions of an employer for information about the employer and job possibilities, and
  • present the mentee’s talents and interests in a positive manner tailored to that employer.

2.5.Stage Five: Post Graduation.

2.5.1.Contacts with Mentors. Many mentors become lifetime friends with their mentees and are delighted to hear from them as their career and personal lives progress. In most circumstances, a mentor will be available to a mentee who has graduated. But graduation normally shifts the relationship so the mentor will wait for contacts from the mentee on an “as needed” basis (e.g., when the graduate is considering job or career changes).

2.5.2.Tips for Jobs. Please review the “Tips for Your First Job” available on the CEN web site at:

2.5.3.Career Tips. Below are some tips for new graduates as they begin their careers.

2.5.3.1.Networking and Building Relationships.

  • Seek out, develop and maintain relationships with mentors and colleagues.
  • Continually build and maintain your network (not just when you’re looking for a job).
  • Become active in UNCW’s Alumni Association and update your information at email updates to to participate in all alumni related events.
  • Join CSB’s LinkedIn group described in section 2.2.5 above.
  • Stay connected with your CEN mentor.
  • Develop one or more mentors in your business and in the industry in which you work. Build cross-departmental networks at work.
  • Join a professional organization and attend regularly.
  • Stay connected with friends from the past.
  • Recognize there are always work-place politics. Learn to navigate them.
  • Leave any negative attitudes at the door whenever you are working.
  • Elevator Speech. Your elevator speech continues to be important. Develop several, and continually refine them.
  • For work, include as appropriate your name, department, title (optional), tenure, current project, business focus and your career plans and hopes.
  • For professional networking, include as appropriate your name, company, work focus, tenure and career plans and hopes.
  • For social events, include as appropriate your name, company, field, school, hobbies, family and career plans and hopes.

2.5.3.3.Career Plans.