We’re getting ready to start our second experiment here at TME, this time with a focus on mentors. One of the things we learned from our first experiment is that there are a lot of people wanting mentors, far more than we expected, which means we need a lot of mentors! The first part of our next experiment is focused on learning some things about mentors:
- How big is the mentor pool within the SQL Server community?
- How do we qualify mentor applicants?
- What do potential mentors expect to gain – is it just pay it forward, or are there more granular goals?
- Can they describe their “ideal” mentee? That’s really interesting, because if they can it both helps us make good matches and it increases the chances that the match will be successful.
- How do we handle it when we don’t think someone is not qualified to be a mentor? Or when we don’t have a candidate that matches to them?
Are you interested in being a mentor? If so, please fill out this very short nine question survey. We’ll be taking applications through May 21st, 2012. It will take us a couple weeks to look through the data and after that we’ll do the first of a few groups of mentor/mentee pairings in early June, and continue launching new pairings in groups of 5 to 10 until we run out of mentors (or mentees!).
For those of you wanting to be mentored, we’ll publish that application in early May (and yes, you can be a mentor and a mentee).
I am interested in being a junior level mentor. I think there are alot of people like me that can benefit from a senior mentor, but are skilled enough to simultaneously mentor individuals new to SQL.
Thoughts, about a give and take set-up for mid-levels like myself?
On an interesting note, I wonder how many of those applying to be mentors would also like a mentor themselves. I know I would!