Practitioner Mentoring Program

For those interested in being mentored, you must have a SIOP membership status of Associate or Member and be a working professional for at least 6 months. Applicants must not be currently enrolled in a graduate program.

Mentors provide many benefits to protégés. They serve as guides, sounding boards, coaches, role models, advocates, and other roles. A mentor can give you the guidance you need when you need it. Most of all, mentors help protégés focus on their goals and facilitate career progress.

Mentors report an improved focus on their own career development, learning about other members in the organization, increased coaching skills, and satisfaction from being able to help someone else.

Mentoring programs are structured to have the formal mentoring relationship last about 10 months, from March to December. In general, about 15% of mentors and protégés continue the relationship informally beyond the year.

It varies by the particular mentoring pair and what pressing needs the protégé may have at the time. At minimum, mentoring pairs usually meet for one to two hours a month.

Conversations are guided by a protégé’s goals and needs. Protégés generally bring topics to discuss or an agenda. In the end, mentors help protégés bring conversations back around to their overall goals. Mentoring conversations are treated as confidential between mentor and protégé.

The two keys to getting off on the right foot are getting the logistics right and identifying the protégé’s goals for mentoring. These two topics generally occupy the first two or three meetings.

Pairs are made based on the protégé’s stated goals for mentoring and the mentor’s strengths which are collected at the application phase. They are also matched based on career track (e.g., external consultants with external consultants).

Protégés may work on topics that indirectly support finding a new job, such as networking, career development, and professional growth, but this program is not intended to directly support job placement or job search.

There are currently 4 SIOP Mentoring Programs: The Practitioner Mentoring Program (program associated with the current FAQ doc); Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) Mentoring Program; Women’s Inclusion Network (WIN) Mentoring Program; Diversifying I-O Psychology (DIP) Scholars Mentoring Program. See brief descriptions below for each.

View Mentoring Programs