Recruitment mentee

Intermediaries were used as far as marketing and mentor and mentee recruitment were concerned. These intermediaries included the Business Links community. Change Management alumni from Sheffield Hallam University, other private contacts, and newspaper advertisements. However, as it turned out, most mentors and mentees were eventually obtained via the Business Links community. Furthermore, some mentors used their own networks to win other mentors for the scheme. 

Once the implementation team is in place, recruitment should first focus on the selection of mentees before turning to the selection of mentors. The reason for this lies in the fact that mentoring is set up to benefit mentees (employees with certain learning requirements). In order for mentors to develop these employees, their needs must be ascertained first, and then mentors matched to them. Let us now consider mentor and mentee recruitment in more detail, starting with the mentee. 

Another issue warrants attention with regard to mentee recruitment choice of participation. 

For Roots Wings, mentors were recruited through nationai pubiicity (articies in BT media and intranet) and iocai pubiicity (e.g. taiks to groups, events put on by partner schoois in BT buiidings). Mentees were recruited foiiowing a taik to pupiis about the nature of the scheme. 

Because of the vast differences between schemes regarding the characteristics of the mentee group, it is impossible to generalize about mentee selection criteria. In contrast to that, there do appear to be certain criteria for recruiting mentors that apply to the majority of schemes. These are ... 

Peer mentoring is used in many British and American organizations. For example, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) ensure that each new employee within the financial advisory services is matched with a peer mentor. For a few months, mentors are the new recruits first point of contact, helping them learn the ropes (for example, mentors may assist mentees in understanding the IT systems). 

You should start off designing the recruitment plan in a very broad manner - that is, begin by deciding on the approximate number of participants (mentors and mentees) that you intend to recruit initially. This number will be determined by a variety of factors, including ... 

Having decided on the vacancies that need filling, determine the number of people needed for each role. This should be done in accordance with the number of mentees and mentors you are planning to recruit. Then you can draw up job descriptions and selection criteria for each of the vacancies. With regard to the selection criteria for trainers, relationship supervisors and (if still necessary) the program co-ordinator, please refer back to Founding the implementation team and Table 8.1. 

Once the criteria for minimizing the mentee population are set, you can begin to recruit specific individuals. There are a variety... 

If you utilize the recommendations of others to recruit mentees, they also must be well irrformed regarding the program objectives and the mentee selection criteria. This prevents a lot of unqualified candidates from being put forward. However, if your initial informative campaign has been carried out thoroughly, this should not be a problem ... 

As pointed out in Chapter 3, mentee selection criteria vary so greatly between schemes that it is virtually impossible to generalize about them. They are determined by the objectives of each program. Yet there are a few characteristics that you could look out for when recruiting your mentees, and these include ... 

Another point to remember in mentor selection is that the mentors you want to recruit might be very different from each other, requiring distinct job descriptions and selection criteria. This is due to the fact that the mentor target groups (and their associated criteria) are determined by the organization s and the mentees needs and objectives, as well as by the mentoring schemes that were selected. 

A last point to mention with regard to your recruitment campaign is the importance of continued marketing. All-year publicity is important to keep the program going by ensuring the influx of new mentors and mentees. 

The scheme has been marketed through company websites and invitation letters. Half of the mentors recruited for the program were internal to Ericsson and typically recommended by senior management. The other half, the external mentors, were recruited with help from the business school IMD - they supplied a range of individuals who committed to mentoring on a voluntary basis. In the recruitment of mentees, Boultwood received assistance from HR and line managers in other countries, who nominated candidates. Selection criteria for mentors included that they had to be ... 

The extent to which one requires support from other employees at local sites (e.g. help from local HR/manage-ment in recruiting mentors and mentees, or publicizing the program), and therefore... 

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