Resource of the Week #186: “Top Tips for Being a Successful Mentee”

Hello again. Mentors (through AuthorAID or otherwise) can help greatly in developing one’s career. But to gain the most from a mentorship, the mentee must take an active role. This week’s resource provides advice on doing so.

Titled “Top Tips for Being a Successful Mentee”, this resource contains 11 tips. Here are 3 that may be especially relevant to AuthorAID mentees:

• “4. Define the relationship – Once you have found your potential mentor, clearly articulate what you are looking for in this mentorship and for how long. . . . ”
• “8. Learn about your mentor – How did she get to this stage in her career? [If] there [was] a time where he thought there was no way out of a situation, how did [he] get out of it? Who inspires them? . . . ”
• “9. Follow up/Stay in touch – Mentors are taking time to . . . impart their knowledge. Follow up with a thank-you note after each meeting/interaction . . . .”

This list of tips is from Research to Action (R2A), an initiative to improve how development research is communicated and used. The R2A website also includes other advice, for example on producing policy briefs.

I thank Julie Walker at INASP for mentioning the list of top tips.

Until next post—

Barbara