A Day in the Life of a Professional Mentor

Learning how to be a mentor can be an incredibly rewarding experience, particularly if you’re passionate about sharing knowledge and teaching people. Furthermore, by mentoring job roles, you’ll be helping people to achieve their dreams while earning excellent money in your own time.

But what exactly is it like to work as a mentor? And how do mentors manage their time on a day to day basis? Today we’ll be taking a closer look at the tasks mentors do on a day to day basis and why so many find mentoring to be the perfect side hustle.

Planning & Research

One thing some people worry about when signing up to become a mentor is the amount of time they’ll have to spend researching. After all, mentors are paid by the session so research can feel a bit like unpaid extra work.

That being said, research and planning are highly important tasks that will go a long way towards helping your mentees achieve success. After all, while your expertise will be extremely valuable, it’s important to make sure your information is up to date and relevant directly to your mentee.

So how do you manage your planning time?

The best thing to do is to assign a set amount of research time to each client and factor that into the cost of sessions. That way, you can plan your research around your sessions ensuring that you’re always prepared with the information you need.

It’s also worth noting that mentees tend to require more research up front as you’re coming to understand their unique circumstances. The further along you are, the more you’ll be able to rely on your experience and knowledge of the job role.

Mentor Meetings

Meetings are arranged between you and your mentee and can take place at any time. This means that you can match your schedule to them or vice versa depending on your preference.

During the meeting, it’s generally best to start with a quick catchup to find out what progress your mentee has made towards their goals and what still needs to be done. From there you can talk about any new challenges your mentee is facing before moving onto their next steps.

Some meetings will end up being shorter than others. This will depend a lot on both the mentee and the stage you’re at together. Some mentees will prefer to take more time while others may be short and to the point. Some mentees will be better than others at expressing themselves.

Once you’ve covered where your mentee is and how things are going at present, the last thing you’ll want to do in every meeting is discuss your next steps. This is mostly focused on your mentee, finding out what they need to do and helping them to keep an eye on their goals. That being said, this is also a good moment to establish any research you might want to do before your next meeting. It’s also the perfect chance to talk about networking.

Networking

Alongside planning and research, networking is a mentoring job you’ll be doing outside of sessions and, as such, should increase your value as a mentee. Unlike research, networking isn’t very time intensive as it usually just involves contacting people in your personal network and helping to introduce your mentee.

Sometimes you may be on the lookout to help your mentee find job opportunities in your field. Sometimes you might need answers to some specific questions for your mentee.

Of course, it’s all dependent on circumstance, but the important thing to keep in mind is that networking is one of the most valuable services you can provide to your mentee. Even if they don’t think to suggest it themselves, it’s always worth offering to introduce them to people as this is more likely to foster good will and a long-term mentoring relationship.

Remember that, even once your mentee has attained their first job role, your mentoring partnership doesn’t have to end. You can help to show them the ropes and you can even give them advice about how to climb that career ladder even higher. At some point, your mentee may even become a valuable member of your network themself, making the time you spend teaching them all the more valuable in the long run.

When all’s said and done, mentoring can be an excellent side hustle, but balancing your time and your tasks is always important. While a mentoring job can give you an incredible amount of freedom in this regard, it’s nonetheless important to always be careful about how you manage your time – particularly if you’re working as a part time mentor alongside a full-time role.