Participate in Mentoring

The IPO Mentoring program provides IPO members of all experience levels an opportunity to learn and grow with support from fellow members in the IPO community. Experienced members and IP leaders are encouraged to volunteer as mentors and share ideas with their early-career colleagues who will be the next generation of leaders. Members seeking guidance from their more senior colleagues may volunteer as mentees. You can apply to our Mentor Match program in four simple steps:

Rules and Expectations of Participants

- NO sharing of confidential client/company information of any kind.

- Not designed to support junior staff to improve on-the-job, substantive IP onboarding or performance

- Not an employee recruiting or job solicitation forum

Expectations of participants:

- Confidentiality of conversations is required

- Aimed at relationship building

- Commitments for meeting whether by phone, video or in person are endeavored to be kept

- Share experiences, knowledge and ideas

- Share resources and connections as appropriate

- Advise and guide – not criticize

- Work jointly towards established goals

START

Complete your IPO CONNECT PROFILE. Make sure your contact information is up to date, add a recent professional profile picture, expand on your bio and import your education and job history information from LinkedIn. Having a complete and accurate profile is crucial to the success of selection and matching. Profile complete? Return back to this page and move on to step 2.

ENROLL

Are you looking to be a mentor or mentee? Perhaps both? Sign up:

• Enroll as a Mentor
• Enroll as a Mentee

Make selections for each of the program demographics to set your preferences. Demographics include: topics, venue, specialties, career stage and start/end date. Please note that some fields are required for enrollment. The more information you provide, the easier it will be to make the best match. Keep in mind in order to request a mentor or mentee, you must be enrolled in the program.

SEARCH

Use the Mentor Program Directory to input your search criteria. Start by selecting the topic(s) of interest.

You can also take advantage of features to help you find and recruit matches:

  • Track your mentoring relationships
•   Participate in discussion forums on mentoring topics
•   Search for helpful mentoring resources

CONNECT

Congratulations! You're all set. You completed steps 1-3 and are now ready for the fun stuff. Let the mentoring begin. Do one search or multiple searches. If you're unsure of the search criteria, select "Search for ALL of the selected values." The Mentor Program Directory will do the work for you and populate the results.

Next click on the member's name that you're interested in establishing a mentor/mentee connection with. The link will bring you to their profile page. Look around. If you think it's a desired match, look under their profile image for the Mentor Match badge, which when clicked will allow you to request a connection. If it's not a desired match, you can simply select the back button to return to your previous search results.

Also, don't forget to view our Mentor Match FAQs!