Best Way to Design an Alumni Mentoring Program
All of us, at some point in our lives, have looked for a mentor to guide us through, either Professional careers or educational learning. Mentorship simplifies the things that tend to be filled with lots of uncertainty and doubt. Coming to academic mentorship, while faculty mentors are experts in their fields and can surely enlighten the students on aspects like conducting research, and advancing their analytical skills, that itself is not sufficient. In today’s scenario, students and young alumni need more insights into the actual industry and business world to help them survive in the corporate world. This is where alumni mentors come into play.
There’s no denial that Students are the most benefited through the Alumni Mentoring Programs but that’s just not it. The benefits of the program are multifold and will be extended to all of those involved. Students will gain important insights, alumni will feel more connected to their alma mater and fellow alumni, and the institution will have a stronger network of individuals working to improve the learning experience. While Alumni Mentoring Programs are one of the best fits for Student development, how do you design one such program to reap the maximum gains effectively?
Designing a Mentor program
With 12+ years of exposure in Alumni Relations, We, at Vaave, have identified the Best way to design a mentor program involving 4 steps that are equally important as the other.
- Layout Mentoring areas — Alumni Mentoring can be stretched to multiple areas where both the Student and Alumni can be benefited from and classified into -
- Academics — Project Guidance, Internal Examinations, Higher Education (India and Abroad inclusive)
- Careers — Jobs/Internships and Entrepreneurship
- Personal Guidance — Mental Support and Investment
Pick up and focus on one area that you want to run a program on, this further helps to screen the mentor and the right audience.
2. Setup mentoring platform/tools — Starting and running a mentorship program takes time, at the same time, it needs a dedicated platform/tool that is meant exclusively for. It can be tools like handbooks/Q&A platforms/Training which help mentors to prepare for their roles and platforms which enable Virtual Interactions and engagement. This helps mentors and mentors understand their roles and what is expected of them during the mentoring program. Specific tools for taking feedback or surveys are not to be forgotten.
3. Identify and Enroll Mentors — Mentor Journey Mapping is the process of Identifying mentors and onboarding them which in turn has 4 major stages -
- Awareness — Introduce the Program to your Alumni community, and create hype around it so that Alumni can’t afford to miss out.
- Value — Market the value that Alumni would get from it. Sell it to the Alumni by showcasing the worth that they can gain out of this and how it helps in their personal and professional growth.
- Consider — Identify the different sets of your Alumni, consider their interests/Domains/Achievements and place them into the right program.
- Loyalty — Specify the expectations and responsibilities of the mentor which helps in getting a commitment from the mentor and his interest to come back.
On the other hand, Qualifying mentees as well along with identifying mentors is needed, so that the discussions cannot be offboarded. Provide access to only such mentees who don’t end up spamming your platform.
4. Measure success and recognize the best mentors — Build up your metrics according to your needs on which you can evaluate the program that enables you to improvise and make it better. Have a timely tracking of the program and keep certain benchmarks that can measure the success of your program.
Recognize best mentors by Reviewing and Feedback Mechanism. With a couple of iterations, you can filter your best mentors. Reward them with Certifications, brand and thank them on social media that aiding the mentors in their professional career
Mentoring Programs by Vaave — Realizing the importance of Mentoring Programs in exceptional recruitment, retention, and rankings, we provide 5 different kinds of programs to our clients where mentees are both the Students and Alumni.
- Student Guidance Program — A one-to-many (Webinars/Experience sharing) and many-to-many mentoring program (Q&A Forums) that focuses on Interviews/Jobs/Internships where students are the mentees.
- Student Project Guides — A high-touch program that offers guidance on choosing a project and funding which involves small team interactions.
- Virtual Learning Programs — Workshops that help in gaining practical experience with the latest technologies and offering Upskilling/ Certifications which can be Student-Alumni or Alumni-Alumni mentoring.
- Alumni Instructing Program — One-on-one mentoring for Alumni by scheduling an appointment where the focus area can be Career Growth or Domain Experience
- Alumni Support Program (Saathi) — Mentoring about Personal problems/Overcoming stress/Relationship problems which involves one on one Alumni-Alumni interaction.
Career Center by Vaave — Online platform to run and implement the Alumni mentoring program which allows Student—Alumni discussions by giving access to students to post questions on an online Q&A platform which further improves Alumni engagement. It has a provision that allows Alumni to register themselves as Mentors and provides them with mentor tags.
The support a student gets from an institution from the faculty is immense. Having said that, in the latest competitive world that doesn’t let a newbie excel that easy, Alumni Mentoring simplifies the process of Career development. Alumni Mentoring Program is more of an Exposure/Experience sharing program in the vocational curricula that many students are choosing where networking is key and previous experience is necessary. Mentoring provides both of these important opportunities, as well as many other benefits. Seize the opportunity to improve your students’ learning experience by building and maintaining a Mentoring Program.
Vaave has been able to successfully foster alumni engagement for 1000+ institutions over the past decade as a pioneer in the Alumni Relations Space.
To know more about or for any queries, visit www.vaave.com or drop us a mail at hello@vaave.com
