Career mentoring – a mentee’s guide
The ICAS career-mentoring process is entirely member-initiated, with interested CAs expected to proactively reach out to potential mentors through CA Connect, our member-exclusive online community platform.
Getting started as a mentee
Here’s a brief summary of how the process works for mentees:
- CA Connect enables virtual relationships between ICAS members across the many countries in which they operate.
- Upon completing your CA Connect profile, use the relevant drop-down menu to indicate that you would like to find a mentor. This status will then appear on your profile.
- Perform an Advanced search within the Members Address Book, for those with an ‘I'm available as a mentor’ status.
- Use the additional search options to filter your search according to your specific requirements, such as the prospective mentor’s geographic location or professional interests.
- Open a chat within CA Connect to reach out to a prospective mentor and start your mentoring conversations.
- Whilst CA Connect tends to support online interactions between mentors and mentees, it can also be used to initiate face-to-face meetings.
Updating the mentoring status on your CA Connect profile:
Using the advanced search features to find a mentor on CA Connect:
Use our mentoring checklist and guidance resources
We’ve created a career-mentoring guidance logbook and checklist to support mentees through the process, which you can find in the Resources section at CA Connect.
Whilst their usage is not required, they’re intended as a handy ‘one stop shop’ for mentees, to save you having to create your own documents, checklists, guidance or records, and to help you get the most out of the process.
From the initial meeting onwards
Once you’ve found a mentor, you should meet, virtually or face-to-face, to explore and confirm the potential of the mentoring engagement.
Upon connecting, mentoring participants should expect:
- To always be treated, and to treat others, with respect.
- To be challenged and supported to achieve your goals, which may be direct and/or emergent, and could range from becoming more self-aware to increasing your personal network.
Reach an agreement of mentoring
We recommend that you use the checklist to support the discussions that lead to reaching an agreement of mentoring, and we recommend that it’s referred to regularly throughout your mentoring engagement.
Participants rely upon clear communication from the outset, and in your first meeting you and your mentor should agree to the following:
- Your goals and expectations – what you hope to achieve through the process.
- Confidentiality – should any third parties be informed, and if so, what can be discussed with them.
- Availability – how often your mentor will be available.
- Duration of the relationship – e.g. three months, six months, one year.
- Meeting and communication format – will you meet online, by phone, face-to-face.
- Roles and responsibilities – who will set the agenda for meetings, etc.
- How feedback will be handled.
- Review and evaluation – of the relationship and your progress.
You should make a point of regularly and jointly reviewing the terms of your mentoring engagement, especially your goals, to ensure that you are still on track.