Postdocs as Mentors

Being a mentor can have a profound influence on the relative satisfaction and success of postdoctoral scholars. Postdoctoral mentors can also make enormous contributions to their mentees’ education, personal and professional development, and well-being. To help your mentees get the most out of their mentoring experience, it is helpful to establish good communication, have a plan, and set goals.

Mentoring involves the communication of information between people. Mentors can be thought as “guides on the side,” serving to facilitate the mentee’s construction of their own personal and professional development. Getting to know your mentee involves dedicating time to learn more about them by asking questions and practicing active listening.

One of the best ways to approach mentoring is to construct a plan in collaboration with your mentees. Mentoring plans are tools to help optimize the mentoring experience by providing a roadmap for both the postdoc mentor and the mentee of the activities that will be undertaken to further the mentee's professional and career development.

It is important for mentors and mentees to meet regularly to review goals, progress, challenges, and future plans. One aspect of mentoring involves preparing mentees to be competitive for future careers inside and beyond the academy. Putting those goals and expectations in writing can be helpful for anchoring those discussions.

Here is a list of tools that can help you (postdoc) navigate the needs of your mentees and provide them with productive and oriented advice on the development of various professional skills:

UArizona Mentoring Toolkit: guidelines on how to create the best mentoring experience.

A Postdoc's Guide to Mentorship, by NPA

ImaginePhD, Imagine PhD (Humanities and Social Sciences)

Nature’s guide for mentors

How to Mentor Graduate Students, University of Michigan

Graduate Advising and Mentoring: Worst Practices, University of Minnesota

Developing shared expectations (form) University of Michigan

Inclusive Mentoring: Effective Graduate Student Mentoring Practices, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

The Unseen Labor of Mentoring

Postdocs as Mentors

How to find mentors and be a mentor as a postdoc

Advice on Advising: How to mentor minority students