Recruitment mentor

Day to day management of the schemes was ieft with me, and comprised at ieast haif of my workioad over 4 years, it has since been handed on to other peopie. Roots Wings oniy worked because of the dedication of Local Coordinators who built up and maintained relationships with a school, recruited mentors and supported the pairs. 

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 ... 

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... 

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. 

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. 

Currently the most frequent t)q)e of mentoring program, graduate and other new recruit schemes are implemented for several reasons, including ... 

The ability to imderstand and empathize with the situation of the graduate - mentors must be aware of the numerous challenges faced by newly recruited graduates, such as managing organizational politics and adapting to the corporate culture. 

So, what do the mentors of IMMS look like The mentors are either from the same or a more senior organizational rank, and are likely to be from within the organization but could on some occasions also be recruited from outside. This decision entirely depends on the size of the organization as well as on the availability of suitable mentors. Either way, an important selection criterion for mentors is that they possess a lot of experience with multinational enterprise. Although it should go without saying, it is also crucial to select individuals who are indeed capable... 

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). 

Would we be able to recruit sufficient mentors, and who would these be ... 

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 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. 

Part of training and development initiative if the mentoring is part of a larger training and development initiative for which employees have already been recruited, approaching specific individuals will be a fairly straightforward task. 

This part of the recruitment process should be paid a lot of attention. After all, mentors are the linchpins of the program You must therefore fake greaf care fo identify and recruif fhe righf kind of mentors. 

Important mentor selection criteria are depicted in Table 8.3. To further ensure that you recruit the right kind of mentors, you can employ a variefy of additional sfrategies ... 

Use a mentor application/recruitment form (refer to the back of fhis chapter for a femplafe). 

Furthermore, you could also attempt to rely on word-of-mouth delivery of the mentor recruitment process. Make it easy for volimteers or nominators to respond to your advertisement/ request for mentors - you might want to devise and hand out simple forms for them to fill out and return to you, stating clearly where they are to be submitted. 

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 ... 

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