A while ago, I wrote about opening up my calendar for mentorship. Soon, quite a few people talked to me about career switches, interviews for university admissions, life in & career opportunities in Singapore, etc. I eventually asked all of them to score my mentoring. While the conversations are definitely very subjective, I decided that the scoring could be objective. I have decided to open source the evaluation criteria that I use for gauging how effective I am as a mentor. Besides, I will also put up and be very transparent about the scores that I receive, where am I lagging and where I am doing good.
Disclaimer: Even though I realize that feedback is very important, it’s voluntary and optional exercise for the mentees and I do not nudge anyone repeatedly to fill up my evaluation. Thus, I will keep on updating the chart as and when I get more responses.
You will find the evaluation criteria structured in the following way:
- Whether I answered all the questions satisfactorily, to-the-point, and in a structured way?
- Questions around:
- Ease of approach
- Content Expertise
- Clear and comprehensive speaking
- Any bias or prejudice while mentoring
- Professional integrity
- Did I refer any 3rd party material or a subject-matter-expert?
- Whether I am worthy of being referred?
- Overall score and my ROTI (KPI)
- Subjective Feedback
Answers to specific questions
I asked this question to know whether my mentees got answers to their questions. Although I have left some grey area for the respondent (by allowing an option of ‘somewhat’), for me it’s straight-forward binary. I was either on target or not!
Did you get answers to the specific questions you were looking for? Were the answers satisfactory, to-the-point and structured?
values and capabilities
I put up this section because I want to be true to my values, principles, learnings and to gauge whether the core purpose of mentoring is being fulfilled or not.
I asked whether I am easily approachable or not. People have approached me not only via social media but also via referral from another mentor and my alum. I have asked in my questionnaire if I have content expertise, whether I speak clearly & comprehensively, whether I guide without any bias and whether I show signs of professional integrity or not.
Reference to other material or person
It’s of paramount importance to accept that you don’t know something instead of giving someone half-baked information. Sometimes, it’s not about not knowing something, it’s about guiding towards the right source. That’s the reason, I included this section in my evaluation.
Did Shubhanshu refer you to any article, website, or people to seek more information?
worthy of referral
I subsequently asked, if the mentee found me worthy of being referred as a mentor to someone who might need guidance. This definitely distills the effectiveness. Nobody would care to put up a word for me if they did not find me worthy of their own time.
Would you refer Shubhanshu to someone who you believe could benefit out of his consultation?
Overall score
For a mentee, it’s all about how much did my experiences and frameworks helped them make their own decisions. For me, it all boils down to the overall ROTI! No, you are thinking of the wrong ROTI. It’s Return on Time Invested. Since, I do not charge anyone per hour or per session, I am investing my time in talking to you. For me, the definition of ROTI is: help solve the pain point or to help you lift you out of the ambiguity or confusion in decision making. This is the single most important KPI for me and it has to work out for me as much as it should for you! Otherwise, there’s no point.
Thus, besides the granularities of the evaluation that I have discussed above, a question from the bird’s eye point of view is asking the overall effectiveness of the session. I have even kept the responses very pragmatic (at-least, according to me)!
Overall, how was your meeting with Shubhanshu?
Subjective feedback
I was introduced to shubhanshu by one of his colleagues from NUS, who’s blog I had read up online. I have less than a year’s work experience and the sessions I’ve had/ am having with shubhanshu are mainly focussed on him helping me channel my career into business analytics. I have definitely benefitted from all the chats we’ve had and I hope we continue to stay in touch for both, professional guidance and as a friend. Always grateful.
Mentee #1
Shubhanshu went an extra mile to extend his help to me. He was very detailed and thorough with all the points. I would definitely recommend him to others for mentorship for the admissions to the MSBA program of NUS
Mentee #2
The conversation was pretty helpful. I got to know about various career aspects like the one he talked of a website for joining startups. And yah, most delightful thing was politeness of him.
Mentee #3
Way ahead and introspection!
I promised in the beginning that I would be open about where I am lagging and where I am doing good.
From the scores received above, I believe my mentorship sessions have been on-track and pretty decent uptil now. I have given structured and relevant answers, have been easily approachable, fair and shown professional integrity. Although, I probably need to work some more on speaking more comprehensively.
This is it from me! I would be genuinely grateful for your feedback on how can I improve my criteria, how to improve the quality or add some more questions or responses. Please do reach out! You can read why I am doing this, and of-course, feel free to book an appointment.
