Thank you for using Peervuu to get the mentoring and advice you need to succeed in your career! This post is to guide you in making the best of your career mentoring discussion.
How Peervuu Mentoring Works
Peervuu is primarily a video sharing tool that works just like Marco Polo or Snapchat. This means you will send a video asking your mentor the questions you need help with and your mentor will send videos back with their answers (you can also send written messages). Since each session you book will either be 30 or 60 minutes, Peervuu keeps track of the length of all the videos that are sent and when they hit the allotted time, the session is complete. Depending on the type of conversation, once the time is up, you can add more time or purchase more time with your mentor. It’s that easy.
Video makes mentoring so much more:
- Convenient — Both you and your mentor can send videos whenever you have time rather than trying to align schedules to find a time to meet.
- Effective — Sending videos allows you the proper time to think about important questions and how to phrase them, while it allows the mentor time to think of the best and most helpful answers.
- Long Lasting — With videos, you and your mentor will always be able to refer back to the conversation throughout your careers.
Steps to a Great Mentoring Conversation
1. Understand what you’re trying to get out of the mentoring session. Before sending a video, take a moment to write down the questions you’d like for the mentor to help you with. Look over their Peervuu and LinkedIn profiles and think about the unique strengths and experience they have to give you the advice you need to succeed in your career.
2. Clearly and concisely explain to your mentor what you need help with. It is important to be as clear as possible on what you need help with otherwise you make it difficult for your mentor to be effective.
Send them a video telling them — who you are, what you need help with, why you chose them and what you are expecting from them.
3. Clarify your questions if needed. When they send you a video response to your question, if they still haven’t answered the question it’s okay to send a video back explaining further what you need help with.
“Thank you for sharing that story with me. I liked learning about why you chose a career in Product Management. What I’m curious about is how you got into Product and what you think I might be able to do to also get into that career?”
4. Listen carefully to their answers to direct you on what to ask next. When a mentor replies, they are packing a lot into the video. Make sure you understand what they are saying and even watch the video a few times. As you are doing this, write down the follow up questions you’d like to ask to better meet your needs.
4. Answer their questions clearly and concisely. If they ask you questions, keep your answers focused and concise so you don’t take up most of the time. Because you don’t have another person giving you cues about what you are saying, it can be easy to speak longer than you intended.
Before you hit record, quickly outline what you want to say so you can stay on track and make your videos as effective and concise as possible.
5. When the conversation is over, thank them and leave a review! When your mentor has answered all your questions send them a note thanking them for their time and rate their session. This will allow the mentor to display how many sessions they have and how effective they are so they can get more mentees.
Other tips
- Ensure Peervuu emails are not going to spam. Check your spam folder to see if any Peervuu emails have ended up there and move them to your inbox. This will ensure you get notifications in the future when your mentor sends you a written message or video.
- Respond to your mentor as soon as you can. Send your first video as soon as you book your mentor. You should be the one that starts the conversation. When a mentor responds, try to send another video as quickly as you can to keep the conversation going. If it takes you several days to respond, your mentor may assume you are done with the conversation and close the session.
- Be patient with your mentor. Sending videos back and forth is a new way to communicate and takes getting used to. Additionally, your mentors are working professionals that have full-time jobs and often at big, demanding companies. If your mentor doesn’t respond within a day or two, send them a polite reminder message or video. If they don’t respond after that, send us an email at support@peervuu.com. We’ll reach out to your mentor and let you know what’s going on. If your mentor is non-responsive, we’ll refund your money!
- Don’t expect too much from your mentors. Mentors are great for sharing the experiences they’ve gone through, offering a different perspective, and giving advice. Don’t expect them to find you a job, give a referral, put in a good word for you at work, etc. Ultimately, you own your career and you have to do the hard work.
- Try a few mentors. No two mentors are the same. If you don’t like what you heard, try getting another mentor and asking the same questions. If you do like what you have heard, you may still consider asking others.
Peervuu Conversation Tools
There are two ways to get to your conversations. If someone has sent you a video or message, you can click on the notifications icon which will lead you to the conversation. If they haven’t sent you a message, you can select the messages icon.
Once in the conversation, the page will look like this if no messages have been sent:
Here’s what you can do in the conversation’s page.
- On the top left you have your mentor’s picture (if they have added one) and their name. Selecting your mentor’s profile picture will take you to their profile where you can learn more about them.
- The top right number represents how much time you have left in the conversation.
- The three dots to the right of the timer are a menu for extra features such as close the conversation and rate your mentor.
- The middle will display videos and messages sent by you or your mentor.
- In the message box at the bottom, you can send a written message to your mentor.
- The paperclip icon allows you to insert a document or video that has been prerecorded.
- The blue button on the bottom right allows you to record yourself answering a question and send it to your mentor.
Thank you!
Once again, thank you for trusting Peervuu mentors to help you with your career! We hope you enjoy using Peervuu. If you have any questions or suggestions please send them to support@peervuu.com.
