Recruiting the Mentors

Activities and Timescales

Kulvinder BirringBrunel university

June - July 2001

•Alumni Office mailed 44,000 alumni members in its magazine

•35 forms from Biological Sciences graduates who might be prepared to offer career support are sent across to the Careers Service

•The process of identifying other contacts, from amongst alumni and elsewhere, begins

August - September 2001

•The mentor support pack is written

•letters for potential alumni mentors are drafted

•Mentoring Fair is set for 06/03/02 and venue booked

October 2001 • Biological Sciences Level 2 students are sent letter, asking for information on their careers – 57 respond

— a number are interested in investigating non-science careers e.g. Police, Teaching, IT, Accountancy, Investment Banking

— majority interested in clinical data and pharmaceutical related areas

• Letters are sent out to 140 Brunel alumni - mainly Biological Sciences graduates

• A further 600 replies received from the Alumni Office, scanned for contacts in career areas outside biology which match students’ interests       

November 2001 – January 2002

• The initial mail-out is followed up by telephone and e-mail and a further 100 letters sent

• A number of professional bodies are contacted – all are positive but unable to participate

• A number of contacts within blue chip organisations are followed up (PWC, GSK, Pfizer etc.)

• 50 people give a firm commitment, 20 drop out at some stage. Most mentors are willing to mentor more than one student

• All mentors e-mailed a draft copy of the mentoring pack

February 2002

• Mentors are sent invitations for the Fair. Of those who are unable to attend on the day, several are still committed to becoming mentors

• Eight days before the fair, a list of 30 potential mentors, with brief details on each, is put up on the Biological Sciences notice board

• Six interview slots are available for each mentor - Level 2 students are required to sign up for at least two interviews

March 5th – the day before the Mentoring Fair

• Alumni and employers continue to join and leave the programme up to the last minute

• Final preparation session, students confirm their interview slots

March 6th – Mentoring Fair!

• Employers taken through procedures, activities, mentoring pack etc

• 26 employer, of which 23 are alumni

• 56 students attend 131 twenty-minute interview slots

• Mentors rank students according to the extent they feel they could support them, but not according to ability or performance

• Students record their preferences

After the Mentoring Fair

• Those alumni who were unable to attend the fair confirmed that they would become mentors

• Students are matched with mentors according to preferences - 47 mentoring places taken up, of which 37 are Black and Asian students

• The ratio of Black and Asian mentors, particularly from amongst recent graduates, was quite high (30% in total)

• Of the mentors we have recruited, 90% are alumni. This has brought mutual benefits both to our institution and to the graduates themselves

• Mentors and mentees are e-mailed each other’s contact details

• Final copies of the mentoring pack are sent to those mentors not able to attend the fair

• Students who have found their own mentors, through networking, collect Mentor Packs

• A further 10 mentoring places were identified and followed up       

Long term view

To run a Pro-Active Mentoring programme in which students found their own mentors

• this could only happen if the programme were integrated into an assessed module, with support available for students and mentors at all stages of the mentoring process