One of the most important jobs of any mentoring program administrator or coordinator is to create suitable matches. And while the actual ‘matching’ usually gets the majority of attention here, there is an often overlooked and potentially more important element of creating those great matches: surveying program participants to gather the necessary and right ‘profile’ or matching data.
Mentor and mentee profile/matching data can be captured by sending out a questionnaire to prospective mentors and mentees – or via sending out a recruitment form via mentoring software.
And while there is an almost infinite number of mentoring survey questions you can ask, we have compiled a list of commonly used questions, so that next time you go to make those mentor-mentee matches, you have all of the right data to make the matching process a breeze.
10 objective survey questions you must ask your mentors and mentees
(1) What’s your name?
An obvious question, for obvious reasons.
(2) Where are you located?
If in-person meetings are important to your mentoring program, it helps to know where people are located. You may also want to flip this and connect people into remote mentorships to connect your workforce, etc.
If you’re using Mentorloop to manage a large program spanning different time zones, you can filter participants by location to make time zone-friendly matches.
(3) What’s your Linkedin URL?
In the 21st century, you can save your mentor or mentee a lot of mentorship discovery time by giving them access to their mentor or mentee’s professional digital footprint: LinkedIn.
(4) Would you like to be a mentor, mentee, or both?
This is an important question for obvious matching reasons. However, it’s also important to ask participants like mid-level managers whether they would also like to be mentored – even though they are obviously suited to being a mentor too. If not, the experience is still a learning one, with all mentors being inherently involved in reverse mentoring anyway.
(5) What’s your current job function?
e.g. sales, marketing, strategy, management, operations, Talent/HR, IT, engineering, etc.
Many mentees naturally gravitate toward mentors who share their field or career path—and that alignment can be incredibly valuable. But if your program is designed to encourage cross-departmental or cross-functional collaboration, this question can also help you make more diverse, unexpected matches that broaden participants’ perspectives.
(6) What are your greatest strengths?
e.g. communication, leadership, design, etc.
This is a great question for connecting mentors and mentees into productive mentorships. It’s all about alignment.
You might pair participants who are both eager to grow in a particular area so they can support and learn from each other. Alternatively, you can match mentees who are excited to develop specific skills with mentors who have deep expertise in that area.
(7) Where would you like to grow your area of expertise?
This is a follow-up to the previous question. This shows where a mentee wants to improve—and where mentors can step in and help with targeted guidance.
Maybe a mentee is currently working in sales but would like to transition into more marketing-focused roles. The goals/desires of the mentees are more important than their current state. Remember: mentoring is outcome-focused and forward-looking. So while participants’ current roles and skills are relevant, where they want to be and what they want to improve are more important.
(8) What's the #1 thing you would like to get out of your mentorship?
e.g. general career advice & guidance, industry-specific expertise, management/leadership development, expanding my network, etc.
It’s important to expand upon the question of expertise above. There are many ways that a person can grow their expertise and career prospects in an area of expertise, and it helps to know which one is top-of-mind for the mentees. This is also a question to measure against at the end of the program, to showcase employee outcomes.
(9) How would you prefer to communicate with your mentor/mentee?
e.g. Mentorloop, email, Skype, Teams, phone, etc.
While this question isn’t a make or break, it can be highly beneficial to have a mentor and mentee match where both want to communicate.
(10) How would you describe yourself? (select all which apply)
e.g. sports nut, techie, social butterfly, dog lover, foodie, health nut, traveller, etc.
There’s nothing better than a bit of common ground. Try to find some great icebreakers and commonalities between mentors and mentees with questions on the lighter side.
💡 If you’re using Mentorloop Pro, you won’t need to worry about compiling a list; simply select your program theme and the platform will take care of the rest. You can make alterations to the proven list of questions through a simple edit, selection or omission.
5 more subjective survey questions you can ask your mentors and mentees:
These questions require a little more human touch. While they aren’t objective, and therefore don’t make for simple filtered or algorithmic matching, they allow the coordinator/matcher to delve a layer deeper; a layer that uncovers many of the aspects that create those really great mentorships. And if you’re allowing participants to find their own matches, these questions can give them a bit more insight into potential mentoring partners.
(11) In 3 years' time, would you like to be doing [X] in [Y]:
Humans don’t have the ability to think too long term, but you can glean a lot of insight from asking someone where they want to be in a few years’ time. How ambitious are they? Do you have a mentor in your cohort who knows the exact path to that position because they are already there – or have been there before?
(12) Your top passions are:
You can leave this one open-ended or make it multiple-choice to encourage mentors and mentees to be matched on a deeper level. Mentorships aren’t only about professional development.
(13) What are a couple of the major challenges you are trying to overcome in your role right now?
Is the mentee having a hard time with their boss? Or struggling to transition to leadership? If you can align these problems and hurdles with a mentor who is in the best position to help them overcome them – you are onto a winner.
(14) Describe your ideal mentor or mentee:
This question really gets to the heart of the type of person and attitude each mentor or mentee would like to be paired with. While you probably can’t give them their ideal mentor or mentee – asking this question can help you get close.
(15) What’s your preferred learning style?
Not everyone learns the same way. Some like structure, others prefer informal chats. This info helps mentors adapt their style to what works best.
Asking the right mentoring survey questions helps you build stronger relationships, make better matches, and ultimately run a more impactful program. And with Mentorloop, you can collect, organize, and use these insights effortlessly.
Want to learn more? Get started now or book a demo with one of our mentoring program specialists!
