The following is an example of a checklist covering points you might find useful to cover your first mentoring meeting with your apprentice:
- What are your goals and what is the order of priority?
- How will we measure progress?
- How will we feedback to each other, and how often?
- What is the ideal schedule for our contact and meetings? How often will we meet?
- How long shall we meet for?
- Will either of us take notes? What can we record?
- What will we agree about boundaries and confidentiality?
- What is the agenda for our next meeting?
- What can we learn from each other?
- How can we ensure openness and trust?
- What happens if the mentoring relationship isn’t working?
You will also need to prepare in terms of:
Make sure to consider the apprentice’s point of view. They may not know what to expect from the mentoring process and therefore it is important that you invest time in agreeing their role as well as your own. This aspect of your role is to manage expectations.