After much deliberation, you filed your mentoring application and received your email confirmation. Not long afterwards, you received the resume and mentoring application of your student. The birth of your mentoring relationship is where it all begins!
During this phase, you will experience one of the most exciting events in the relationship - meeting your student for the first time. At this first meeting, you will talk with your student to clarify what each of you is expecting from the relationship.
Let's take a look at what you can do to make sure your first few interactions go well.
The first meeting is where you and your student will form your first impressions, so it's important that the meeting go well. A little advanced planning can do a lot to ensure that your first meeting is a success.
Here are some things to think about before you meet.
Who is in charge?
Since we want this relationship to be a partnership, start with the notion of shared responsibility from the beginning. For example, rather than telling a young person "Let's meet at McDonald's?" you might say, "I've thought about a few different places we might meet up - how about I tell you about them and you can let me know if one sounds best?"
Planning vs. Spontaneity
Planning is a good idea, not just for your first meeting, but for all your meetings. Some new mentors worry that this will remove the element of spontaneity. Experienced mentors have found that a little planning makes things more comfortable and actually allows for more spontaneous activities. Having something planned doesn't mean you can't take advantage of a spontaneous idea!
The First Meeting
Meeting your student for the first time is one of the most exciting points in the relationship. However, it can be a bit uncomfortable - for both of you! Both mentors and student often worry about the other person's opinion. Both often worry about what they will say. Here are some suggestions to make that important first meeting go smoothly!
The following are some suggestions to help you develop a rapport and build trust with your student.
• Call your mentee
• Pick a good place to meet
• Help your mentee prepare
• Prepare yourself
• Be on time
• Set a comfortable tone
• Things to talk about
Call Your Student 
Your student will be wondering what he/she should do during your first meeting. When you call, tell your student that you will spend your first meeting getting to know one another. Suggest that he/she spend some time thinking about the following:
• how often you will meet
• what time/days are best to meet
• what knowledge and skills does he/she want to develop through the relationship??
Things To Talk About
There are a lot of things you and your student can talk about during your first meeting. Here are are some suggestions:
• Why is each of you interested in mentoring?
• What does your student hope to get out of the relationship?
• What professional goals has the student set already?
• What ground rules should be agreed upon? (More on these in just a bit!)
• What are three things we have in common?
• What are mentor's/student’s extracurricular activities?
• What are mentor's/student’s favorite and least favorite classes?
• What food's do the mentor/student like to eat?
• What do you - the mentor - hope to get out of the relationship?
• What are your - the mentor's - own goals/dreams
Setting Ground Rules
Setting ground rules early in your relationship will help avoid many problems later on. Ground rules establish the framework of your relationship. It is important that both of you are comfortable with and agree to the ground rules you set. Possible ground rule topics include:
• How often to meet
• Places/times to meet
• What to do if one partner is unable to make a meeting
• Bringing friends to mentor meetings
• Confidentiality about meeting content, discussions, and contact information
Setting Relationship Goals
During your first meeting or two, it will be important for you to talk with your student to clarify what it is that he/she hopes to get from the relationship. Is he/she looking for help with selecting the right coursework in order to be competitive? Does he/she have a career goal you could help achieve? Maybe your student is just looking for someone to talk to about the issues in a career field so that the student is more knowledgeable and prepared for their internships and jobs.
Communication Skills
Strong communication skills will be critical to building your relationship. It is important that your communication skills including extensive listening skills, questioning skills, an ability to read body language, and a tone that is focused on positive development, regardless of the student’s professional or academic achievement.
Phase 2 - Engage!
Once your mentoring relationship is off to a good start, you and your student enter the second phase: engage.
From the outset you have worked on getting to know one another while at the same time planning specific activities that relate to the goals for the mentorship.
In the Engage phase, you will deepen and strengthen your relationship, developing greater mutual trust and respect. At the same time, you will be refining goals and making plans for activities that will help meet your student’s goals.
One of the key elements in building a strong mentoring relationship will be helping your student define and achieve his/her goals. As you begin the process of helping your student define where he/she wants to go, it can be helpful to take a look at where he/she is now.
Personal Mission
As your relationship deepens, you can build on your shared history and trust by helping your student get clearer on some core issues in all our lives, like how do I find work/life balance and what are my core values ?
When a young person, or anyone for that matter, applies these concepts to him/herself, s/he can make choices in life that are consistent with who s/he is and wants to be. If your mentorship reaches this level of trust and respect, you may find it to be a powerful experience and one that can be very much life-enhancing. You may find that you benefit from guiding the process - you may get clearer on your own mission and vision.
Developing Goals and Objectives
Just like other practical skills which didn't make it into the high school curriculum, most of us were never taught the skills of defining a personal mission and then setting goals and objectives to help get us there. Let's look at how this can be achieved through the mentoring process.
Potential Activities
Now that you and your student have gotten clear on mission, goals and objectives, it will be much easier to plan activities you can do together. Of course, many of your activities can and perhaps should relate to helping your student achieve his or her goals and objectives - but remember, this mentorship is not only about goal achievement - it's also about relationship - getting to know each other better, enjoying yourselves, building shared memories.
You might want to develop an activity checklist on your own and then share it with each other via email before your next meeting. Use your answers - where you agreed, where you made different choices - as a jumping off point for a discussion. See if you can agree on activities for the next 2-3 visits.
Phase 3 - Sustain
The next stage of your relationship will likely be the longest as you sustain your mentoring relationship. During this stage you will continue to help your student reach his/her goals.
You will both need some new skills to keep your relationship strong over the long term. These include:
1. Assessing the health of your relationship
2. Giving feedback
3. Solving problems
4. Determining if you are really making a difference
These four skills will be discussed next.
Giving Feedback 
As your relationship continues to grow, there will be times when both of you will need to give the other feedback. Feedback is important to both correct problems and reinforce positive aspects of the relationship.
However, even though feedback is critical to sustaining a relationship, most of us live our lives at such a hurried pace that we do not take the time to plan our constructive feedback.
An effective feedback message has three key parts:
• Behavior
• Effect
• Change
Problem Solving
As in any relationship, it is possible that problems will occur with your student. These may be problems between the two of you, or between your student and someone else.
You can play two key roles. First, you can help your student find a workable solution to the problem. Even more importantly, you can model a problem solving process that your student can apply to other problems.
The problems solving process consists of six steps:
1. Define the problem
2. Define success in solving the problem
3. Generate alternatives
4. Evaluate alternatives
5. Agree on action
6. Schedule follow-up
Are You Making A Difference?
Most mentors choose to mentor because they want to make a positive difference in the life of a young person. There will be times where it is easy to see the impact you are having. For example, your student might:
• do well on a test or project on which you provided help
• get a job or internship based upon a lead you provided
• successfully resolve a long-standing problem
• develop confidence about the direction of their skills
• ask you more questions
• exhibit more professional behaviors and conversational skills
• engage in more leadership activities or better teamwork
Phase 4 - Transition
The fourth phase in a mentoring relationship is the Transition Phase.
Mentoring relationships come to an end, often at the end of an agreed upon time. However, many mentors and students choose to stay in touch years after their formal interaction ends. We're going to talk about the ways your mentoring relationship may end or change in this section, and help you feel good about how that can happen.
Transitions, Not Endings
So we know that a transition isn't necessarily a moment for "The End" to flash on the screen - but how does a successful mentoring relationship close out the formal mentor-student connection in a healthy, positive way?
There are two main ways a mentoring relationship comes to a formal end: when it is initiated by the mentor or student; or when the goals of the mentorship are achieved and the agreed upon time commitment has been honored. Before we talk about these two types of endings, keep in mind that it's a good idea not to wait until your last meeting with your student to start talking about transitions - transitioning takes time, so be sure to begin exploring the topic before the likely end point.
Let's look at each of the ways a mentoring relationship typically ends.
Ending "On Time and On Purpose"
When a student has reached his or her mentoring-related goals and the time both people have committed has ended, it is time to come to closure on your formal relationship. Remember this does not mean that the two of you will never speak again - you can and should talk together about whether you would like to remain in touch - and if so, how.
Here are some tips that might help:
- Talk about what circumstances might occur in the future where you and the student can mutually benefit from your relationship. Define some ground rules that relate to future contact
- Celebrate your success and accomplishments by engaging in a capstone experience, i.e. a special dinner, pictures, giving a presentation to another group about the value of your mentoring relationship
- Of course, complete your mentoring post-evaluation and submit it to EIU Career Services.
