How to Guide for Mentors Attending Events

What is mentoring?

It is an opportunity for mentees to develop personally and professionally by establishing a supportive mentoring relationship with a Trinity graduate. Mentees benefit enormously from the exchange of ideas with graduates who can share their wealth of experience. Mentees take responsibility for contacting potential mentors. Once a mentor accepts a mentee request, a mentoring relationship begins. As a guideline, aim for about three meetings of about an hour’s duration over a six month period.

What types of topics interest mentees?

• Exploring job roles and sectors
• Deciding what to do after College
• Practicing job interviews
• Finding jobs not advertised
• CV/LinkedIn profile reviews

Who is mentoring for?

• It is for alumni mentors with professional experience interested in sharing their expertise.
• Other Alumni, final year and penultimate year students of all disciplines.

What is the Format of a Mentoring Launch event?

• It’s an opportunity to network with potential mentees.
• Alumni mentors are grouped by sector at the launch event to facilitate mentees finding you.
• Mentees are encouraged to introduce themselves to you, and Zone facilitators will be on hand to help make introductions but please introduce yourself also. Be prepared to discuss your work/career and respond to questions.
• Let potential mentees know that you are registered with Trinity Alumni Online and that you are willing to receive a mentoring request from them.
• Remember these events are an opportunity to speak with mentees. The actual process of mentoring and in-depth conversations happens AFTER the event.

What Happens After a Mentoring Launch event?

• Mentees will be encouraged to connect with you via Trinity Alumni Online. (Prior to the event please register at: trinity.aluminate.net and update your mentor profile if you haven’t already done so).
• Respond to any mentoring requests from potential mentees.
• Explain your availability and capacity to help.
• Once you accept a mentoring request please follow up to arrange your first meeting.
• We have various documents and resources available to assist you with your mentoring journey. These documents can be found on our website here and on the platform itself.

Time commitment:

• Approx. 10 hours from the launch event to April.
• Attend the Mentoring Launch event: (TIMES TBC)
• Meet Ups with Mentees:
• - Flash Mentoring: Approx. 30 minute to an hour meetings
• - Long-Term Mentoring - Minimum 3 meetings for approx. 1 hour over the following six months.
• Respond to a mid-year survey evaluation of your mentoring relationship.

What’s involved for Alumni Mentors:

• Willing to assist mentees to better equip themselves for the labour market in which they have expertise through support, assistance & guidance.
• Register with Trinity Alumni Online Mentoring and agree to Mentor Guidelines and Mentor Agreement.
• Attend the Mentoring Launch Event and meet with potential student mentees interested in your industry/field/area of expertise.
• Where advice is sought outside your area of expertise suggest that the student seeks advice from the Careers Service in the first instance.
• Provide mentoring over a specific period of time, aim for six months initially.
• To inform alumni@tcd.ie if there are issues connecting/communicating with mentees.

What’s involved for Mentees:

• Register with Trinity Alumni Online and agree to Mentee Guidelines and Mentee Agreement.
• Contact potential mentors, to secure a mentor of choice.
• Schedule the first meeting.
• Keep meetings/ contact within parameters established by mentor.
• Be proactive, willing to meet with a mentor and prepare for meetings.
• Discuss and progress career goals and expectations.
• Inform the alumni@tcd.ie if there are any issues connecting/communicating with mentors.
• As needed, seek careers and mentoring support through MyCareer from your Careers Consultant.

Role of Trinity Development and Alumni (TDA):

• Be the point of contact for mentors at alumni@tcd.ie.
• Co-ordination of Mentoring Launch events.
• Manage Trinity Alumni Online.
• Evaluate events and mentoring relationships as they end from an alumni perspective.

Role of Careers Service:

• Be the main point of contact for student mentees through MyCareer and careers@tcd.ie
• Co-ordinate and deliver briefing sessions to mentees prior to the Mentoring Launch event.
• Evaluate events and mentoring relationships as they end from a student perspective.
• Advise on referrals which may arise for mentors who feel mentees need expertise outside of their remit.
• Create mentoring resources to support mentors and mentees.

Role of Schools:

• Promote the value of mentoring and attendance at events to penultimate year and final year undergraduate students.
• Encourage alumni to connect to Trinity Alumni Online.
• Facilitate at Mentoring Launch events.

Zoom

This is the standard Zoom webinar where you register your interest in attending an event and Zoom link, Meeting ID and passcode are sent to your email.

Zoom Events

A Zoom Events webinar process is slightly different to that of a normal Zoom meeting. Zoom Events is its own separate platform that is a recent development by Zoom.

How to set up a free Zoom account for this type of event:

To access a Zoom Event meeting you will need to have a registered Zoom account to attend any event. Don’t worry, a free Zoom account is enough to attend! If you do not have a registered Zoom account, here is a step-by-step guide on how to sign-up.

1. Please ensure that the email address you use to register for the event is the same email you use to log into your Zoom account as you will not be able to access the event using a different email address.
2. Before joining an event on a computer or mobile device, make sure you download the Zoom app from the Zoom Download Center. Otherwise, you will be prompted to download and install Zoom when you click a join link.

Accessing Zoom on the Day:

Prior to the event, you will receive an email from Zoom with a link to join the event; we encourage you to try accessing the event in advance to ensure everything works. As mentioned above, you will need to download the most recent version of the desktop app (rather than accessing through your browser).

If you have any difficulties getting into the event, check that the email you are using is the one that is linked to your Zoom account. If you did not receive or can’t find your invite email, please let us know so we can resend it by contacting alumni@tcd.ie.

Notes on Accessing this Event on Zoom:

We encourage that you try accessing the event lobby the day before the event! A few key points before you join the event lobby:

• You will need the most up to date version of the Zoom App download on your desktop. You cannot access this event solely via web browser.
• Before you join the lobby, we recommend you sign out of Zoom both on your internet browser and on your Zoom Desktop App (we are aware that some people have multiple Zoom accounts!).
• Then, sign into your Zoom Desktop App using the email you use to sign up to the event.
• You should have received an email from Zoom Events with your individual link. On this email there is an ‘add to calendar’ attachment. We recommend you double click this to add the event to your email calendar. This will allow you to access the event directly from your calendar by clicking the 'Join Lobby' link, which will ask you to sign into your Zoom account via your web browser. Click the 'Join Lobby' button and you will automatically join the event lobby via your Zoom app.

You can also access the event lobby by visiting events.zoom.us:

• Log in using the email you registered for the event with
• Click on Tickets at the top of your screen
• Click on the Join Lobby button