3 ms·

I have been on both the mentee and mentor side of this, and it's been my favorite approach. I would add a couple things. 1) Make sure the mentor likes this rol

I have been on both the mentee and mentor side of this, and it's been my favorite approach. I would add a couple things. 1) Make sure the mentor likes this role, and that they understand it's their responsibility to guide the new person or to reach out for assistance if needed. 2) This person should be a peer, but that they should be able assign exercises to the new hire to advance their knowledge. Maybe this could be pairing on bug fixes. Also, I don't know how well this would work at firms where nobody "has enough time" for this. How does one make the time, or change things so that people don't feel that way?

scruple 8y ago
I recently found myself in this role as the mentor and I really appreciate the pragmatism of the approach. It wasn't deliberate, rather the new hire lacks professional experience and no one else knew what to do with them. So, I made myself available from day 1 and have been pairing with them extensively over the last few weeks. It's working out well. They are able to take their own tasks on now and don't require a lot of assistance. This thread gave me the idea that, now that I am at the end of this immediate on-boarding phase, I should take some notes and make them available for the rest of the team / department.