How to be a Mentor on LEH Elevate

This guide will help you find out more about becoming a mentor with LEH Elevate. It includes where to update your profile and how to find and respond to messages from members seeking your advice

What is an Elevate Mentor?
Elevate Mentors are Holles Connect members who have activated their accounts, opted in to being part of the LEH Elevate mentoring programme and filled out a career profile. The aim is to give back and provide professional knowledge sharing and support between
members of the Holles Connect network. There are two distinct elements to the programme:

• Mentoring current Sixth Form pupils, which for safeguarding reasons, is an online, written-only relationship.
• Mentoring fellow alumnae, which is obviously free of restrictions, and you can choose how best to communicate.

You can sign up to both elements, or elect to do one aspect only.

What do I need to do to become an Elevate Mentor?
We kindly request you fulfil the following criteria:

• Be opted in to mentoring.
• Select Sixth Form mentoring and/or alumnae-only mentoring options.
• Add a photo on your profile.
• Complete a career profile to enable mentor/mentee matches.

Whos included in the LEH Elevate Mentoring Programme?
All online members of Holles Connect are able to search for a potential mentor. When they conduct a search the results will show those who have signed up to LEH Elevate to act as mentors. The results will not show members who have not opted-in to the Mentoring
Programme, members who have reached their specified number of requests they are happy to support, or those who do not meet the search criteria (for example they don’t work in the specified industry).

How do I volunteer and what if I want to opt-out of the programme at a later date?
You can opt-in to being an Elevate Mentor by registering on the Holles Connect website; you will be prompted to volunteer upon registration, or you can visit the Careers & Mentoring Page where you can also volunteer to become a member. Once you've opted-in to being a mentor, you will see some extra controls on the settings page of your Holles Connect account. You get to the My Profile page easily by clicking on your name on the right-hand side of the home page after you have logged in:

Here you can select the different areas in which you would like to offer help

This allows you to:

• Select how; you are willing to help (e.g. restrict your help to career advice only, or job interview prep only). This is where you can opt-in to mentor current Sixth Form pupils.
• Limit how many people you're willing to hear from at any one time (the system counts 'active' interactions only, any closed interactions will not contribute to the limit)
• You will have the option to temporarily hide yourself from the Mentoring Programme for 30 days because you're busy, or to permanently opt-out of the programme and be hidden from the search results completely.

3) Add your Work and Education details
Under 'My profile' you can click on the cog for each of these sections to update your current, and previous work, and your education details. Adding your current industry experience, education and workplace allows for our platform to make meaningful matches when a search is conducted.
It is only necessary to fill in your tertiary education details. Please also add a photo to your profile here, which we recommend and strongly encourage. NB Current pupils should NOT upload a photo of themselves.

4) If you change your mind....
Head to 'my settings' to op-out of LEH Elevate

How will I know if someone chooses me as a potential mentor?
If another member messages you via LEH Elevate, you will receive a message from Holles Connect (in My Messages at the top left hand side of the Holles Connect home page). You will also receive an email notification to the email address you use to sign-in to the Holles Connect alumnae website:

The email will include a personal message from the Sixth Form pupil or alumna hoping to work with you, and a series of options for your response:

By clicking one of the links in the email notification you will communicate your decision to the member. If you click on 'Yes I Can Help', you will be redirected to your Holles Connect website messages so you can reply to the member asking for your advice. If you are unable to help this will automatically take you to the page where you can update your settings in your member profile. 
Note: Your contact details are not shared and will not be visible to the member requesting your help.

What happens next?
If you are working with a Sixth Form pupil, you can only exchange messages via Holles Connect. For safeguarding reasons, these messages will be routinely monitored by a member of the Careers Team.

If you are working with a fellow alumna, you are, of course, free to use whatever communication platform suits you and the member seeking your advice. However, in both instances, it is very important that your first response is by clicking one of the links in the email notification so that the team at LEH can track how well this system is working for users who request mentoring support.

If you have any questions, please email: alumnae@lehs.org.uk