Winter AMP (January 2024)
Our Alumni Mentorship Program (AMP) is designed to give CICS undergraduate and graduate students career mentorship over winter and summer breaks. Mentorship is one of the best ways to learn and accomplish your career goals.
Alumni mentors volunteer to help students explore a wide range of career development topics. Besides answering questions through informal conversation, some mentors choose to do resume or LinkedIn profile reviews, conduct mock interviews, and coach on job search strategies.
How it works
CICS Careers will do our very best to match mentors and students using input from the student and mentor interest forms. Mentors can decide how frequently they want talk, but we encourage an hour a week for at least the first month. Our January session will run from January 2-31st, 2024 with a mandatory orientiation for mentees on December 20th, 2023.
Scheduling Best Practices
- Schedule a mutually convenient meeting time for the duration of the program
- Send calendar invites with a Zoom or Google Meet link
- Use the suggested topics and starter questions below, but feel free to change it up
REQUEST A MENTOR VOLUNTEER AS A MENTOR
Proposed discussion topics & questions
Mentorship Do’s and Don’ts
Do
- Share preferred contact information and connect on LinkedIn right away
- Stay flexible -- have a plan but be willing to reschedule when life happens
- Try Calendly if you’re having trouble coordinating schedules
- Listen as much as you talk and avoid giving advice before you ask questions to better understand -- the best conversations are 50/50
- Share related videos, podcasts, articles, etc. with each other to encourage multiple modes of learning
- Show empathy since job searching can be stressful
- Give timely, specific feedback that shows appreciation of effort and confidence in their abilities, but only after asking if they are willing to hear a new perspective
- Respect and maintain confidentiality
- Be intentional about creating an inclusive, safe space that values differences
- Make introductions to others in your network
- Be aware that intent and impact are not always the same -- try to assume positive intent
- Be mindful of your verbal (tone) and nonverbal (facial expressions) cues
- Give feedback on what’s working and not working throughout the program (email Brian or Vera, or wait until the anonymous survey at the end)
- Let the mentors influence how and how frequently to stay in touch after the program
Don’t
- Stop communicating. If you don’t respond to messages in a reasonable amount of time, you will give up your spot in AMP
- Forget to thank your mentor - most are doing AMP because they want to give back
- Let the imposter syndrome hold you back from participating
- Ignore identities -- our community is rich because of its diversity so acknowledge and learn from those with different experiences
- Make generalizations --instead speaking for yourself using "I" statements
- Take a perceived lack of enthusiasm personally -- exemplify active listening skills
- Be too serious -- mentorship should be meaningful and enjoyable
- Be afraid to admit you don’t know -- it’s better to ask for help than to pretend
Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.
Brené Brown
REQUEST A MENTOR VOLUNTEER AS A MENTOR
