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Ask HN: Would you like to receive or provide mentorship?

by dkthehuman on 5/16/19, 10:17 PM with 6 comments

Would anyone be interested if I created a directory of mentors across tech who you could reach out to in order to have 30-minute chats over coffee, tea, boba, phone, etc.? You could chat with people to get career advice, explore different roles and companies, and discuss fun questions like "What are the ethical implications of working in an industry that affects the lives of billions of people around the world?" and "Should I sell everything I own to buy bitcoin?" If you're interesting in receiving mentorship and would like to get updates about this project, you can fill out this form: https://forms.gle/pyQM5GnXGgsHhufRA

If you're interested in providing mentorship, please fill out this form (https://forms.gle/JqfPKzxRZa5qSwFg6) and I'll reach out with next steps. The only qualification required to be a mentor would be having experience working full-time in tech. Since people will reach out to you based on your background, you don’t need to worry about whether you have enough experience to be a “mentor” — you can view the chats as sharing your experiences and perspective rather than giving The Best Advice Ever.

Thanks! I'd like to gauge interest before investing more time into this (planning to build this out if I get > 100 interested mentors).

  • by wjossey on 5/19/19, 4:40 AM

    I do mentoring for managers and primarily get all of my signups from here or twitter when I mention the program in response to a specific thread / topic. At this point, I wouldn’t likely “list” myself because I’m able to fill up my calendar in full without any outside help. I do one 45 minute session each business day, and I’m usually booked up a few weeks in advance.

    I’m sharing this not to discourage you, but highlight a potential downside where the quality of the mentor (someone who has a lot of practice mentoring strangers) might not lean in to a directory listing. I might be totally wrong about this though, so take it with a grain of salt.

    One additional recommendation is to require mentors to use calendly or some scheduling software that people can use for scheduling a session. It keeps the process moving really efficiently and services like calendly let me blend my work schedule with my mentoring schedule seemlessly.

    Good luck either way! Hope it’s a smashing success.

  • by Bucephalus355 on 5/17/19, 8:04 AM

    A lot of people are significantly interested in this. Just look at the responses this person’s mentoring threads get on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shehackspurple

    One thing though. There seems to be some internet shyness ppl have in getting the ball rolling on these kinds of mentoring projects. Would try to plan to deal with that fear of either party reaching out.

  • by ctas on 5/18/19, 12:04 PM

    I offer private mentoring in full-stack development and more on a regular basis. I believe most mentoring relationships start with the people around you, at least mine did. I'm not sure how well a directory like this would convert for the individual mentors, but I think it's a great idea to try out.

  • by apexkid on 5/17/19, 7:16 PM

    There are few people who do this already. You can collaborate with them. Have you checked out:

    www.outofofficehours.com

    www.twoleaps.com