20 Great Ideas For Work Mentoring Activities Infographic

1. Identify Goals

Identify your professional mentoring goals for this relationship. What will be the outcome?

2. Create A Mentoring Action Plan

Review possible career mentoring activities with your mentee and choose a few of them to do. Then create a mentoring action plan to capture your selections.

3. Address Mentee Challenges

Spend time discussing how your mentee dealt with a challenging situation. What was the outcome? If needed brainstorm alternate ways to overcome that challenge.

4. Role Play

Role play how to address a challenging situation to practice skills. E.g. an upcoming interaction that the mentee is unsure about or would like guidance for.

5. Job Shadow

Invite your mentee to sit in on a meeting of yours that will give them an opportunity to learn or network. Debrief afterwards.

6. Provide Networking Opportunities

Introduce your mentee to one of your contacts who could prove to be a valuable professional network contact for them.

7. Provide Oral Feedback

Observe your mentee in a meeting or presentation and give her feedback on her performance.

8. Provide Written Feedback

Review and provide feedback on a presentation, report or document your mentee has prepared.

9. Read Up

Read a new business/professional book or article and discuss your thoughts about it (if reading a book you might want to read and discuss one chapter at a time).

10. Share Career History

Invite your mentee to share the "story of his career", explaining how he got to where he is today. Share yours.

11. Review Your CVs

Exchange, review and discuss each other's resumes. How are key achievements represented? Are there differences in how you each "sell yourself"?

12. Suggest Other Reading

Suggest books, articles, and blogs or other resources for your mentee to read.

13. Team Up & Network Together

Attend a local industry or professional networking or educational event together, Debrief afterwards.

14. Create A Vision Statement

Aks your mentee to create a vision statement that captures where he wants to be in 5 years and what he wants to be known for, then review and discuss together.