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#16
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
This is different for everyone, but for me, I work at a tech company with tens of thousands of engineers in Dallas, Texas. Our team is actually had to avoid recruiting new mentors for a period last year so we can properly develop the skills of our young team without overwhelming the students, budget, etc.
I recommend having a 30sec to 2min elevator pitch specific to what FIRST can do for someone as a mentor. For me, that pitch revolves around - Do you like to build things? We have a budget to build all the cool projects many engineers do at home, but with high school students. - Ever thought of joining a HackerSpace/MakerSpace? That is basically what FIRST can be for mentors in the offseason. - Feel like your day job doesn't allow you to continue technical development as an engineer? Challenge yourself by relearning engineering topics. There is no better way to humble yourself than to try to explain a complex topic you "somewhat remember" to a high school student. - And oh ya by the way... you can legitimately make a difference in the lives of students and our community. There are alot of equally time consuming hobbies my coworkers have (golfing, video games, etc.) that don't have the added benefit of actually helping people, and are arguably no more fun. Honestly, I can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to be a mentor. The fools don't know what they are missing. Steven |
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#17
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
Lack of mentors has caused some of the largest problems on our team. Recently, we have been fixing the 'student run' program of past years to a much more equal share of power between mentors and students. The benefits from this are amazing and keep appearing, but we've also been faced with the fact that we just do not have enough support for our mentors. The recent build and competition seasons proved that, and I am worried that no one is going to have any energy when we get back from World's to continue the growth of our year round program.
So we've recently ramped up trying to find new mentors. But, I've noticed a trend in our attempts. Generally we go to a meeting or event, we make the sell, we get the contact or a guarantee of a follow up...and then nothing happens. How can I make our search for mentors more efficient? |
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#18
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
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Stress to the parents that their children get much more out of any programs that the parents are direct involved with. Over the last 5-6 years, the swim teams in our YMCA league where the parents are consistently involved tend to perform much better than the teams where the parents treat the team as an aquatic day care. Some parents may be intimidated and think they cannot help your team because they are not engineers/programers or are not technical. Explain that there are many non-technical roles such as arranging for food, travel etc. for the team. One does not need to "be technical" to help proofread a Chairman's essay or help practice for the Chairman's interview. |
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#19
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
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One of the interesting challenges we have now is that a lot of our parents feel like they can be a part of the decision making process while not actually helping out with the team. For instance, we weren't able to have student dues this year because the parents got all up in arms at our parents meeting. If we give the idea that, in order to be a part of the team, they have to contribute in some what it may help reduce the "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation. |
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#20
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
We have been blessed with great parent participation. We also have mentors from several businesses with varying skills. My view is just ask around to small machine shops, welding shops, union halls and any other place that can help you in whatever you need. Do presentations at Rotary, Optimist, Lions, VFW, American Legion, etc. The more you get these students out in the community and show what they can achieve with this great program, the more opportunities you have to get mentors/sponsors. I myself was recruited at work and got hooked. I am not only a mentor, but I also sponsor the team each year. I try to tithe to the team as I would to church. It will get harder next year when I retire, but I will still aim to help as much as I can.
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#21
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
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#22
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
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If you'd like, I can send/post a writeup of what the setup/handbook looks like for our team (may not be until after competitions, though - I'm at an event every weekend until after CMP...) |
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#23
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We are in the same boat, based out of a college, and our primary mentor base are college students. While they are engineering students, the turn around is often. Therfore we have a lack of stability year to year. We are also in desperate need of a mentor or two with real world design/engineering experience.
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#24
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I hand people a shirt, a quietly hum,"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend come inside come inside!
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#25
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
I thought I'd make a follow up post, because as I reread this thread my half-joking response came across as a bit out of touch. I recognize there are a huge number of teams out there (including in my home city) that are struggling for mentors, and one of the things we're trying to do is drastically ramp up our mentor recruitment in the next 3-5 years to meet that need for our area teams (not just our own).
The point I was actually trying to make though... to sell anyone, on anything, you really need to come at it from their point of view. Anticipate their concerns: - How much will it cost them? (Varies by team) - Time commitments? (Make sure they know how little they can volunteer and still be effective) - Desire to work with students? (Is your team pretty mature? Let them know!) Appeal to their interests: - Do they like building things and challenging themselves? - Desire to make a change for the good in the world? And then also realize that everyone is human, and they get bombarded with requests constantly, and its easy for things to fall off the radar. It's hard to evaluate how awesome FIRST is from the outside. Get their foot in the door. Send them a follow up email/phone call to invite them out to a build day or demo event several months later... not to ask them to be a mentor, but to let them see what you're working on and whether it looks like fun to them. Network... Network... Network... Johnny's mom knows a guy who knows a guy? Get his number, invite him out. The whole reason I can recruit mentors is because I know a lot of engineers. 90% of the people out there might not be interested, but its a numbers game... never quit asking or quit looking. Are there any makers organizations, ASME organizations, mechanical unions, in your area? Is there any organization that already brings together people that have some form of technical background? Can you go to a meeting and make a request for help? They've done the legwork for bringing together 10-100 people that do technical things, surely 1 of them might be interested? Don't get discouraged. Know that once you do get 1-2 really good mentors one day, those mentors will be your most powerful tool to recruit new mentors... because they likely have many more connections established than you do with other technical people. It can just snowball from there. Last edited by Steven Smith : 04-04-2014 at 12:37. |
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#26
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Re: How do you recruit mentors?
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