By Rachel Spurrier in Mentorship — Nov 22, 2022

Simplify Mentorship with a Merit Mentor Profile

Becoming a mentor on Merit is a great way to give back to the tech community and help foster DE&I in product, engineering, and design. After you become a mentor on Merit, you can customize your profile and configure your mentorship settings. These settings determine how and when members book sessions with you.

We want to make sure that on Merit, mentors only get booked for the times that work for them on the topics they want to discuss—we’re here to help you filter out spam and bookings that don’t work for you. Our goal is to make mentorship sessions both easy and meaningful for both mentor and member.

Interested in providing mentorship to early career folks in tech? Apply to be a mentor on Merit today.

Learn more about how to set up your mentor calendar in a way that works best for you. You can find all of these options by navigating to “Mentor Settings” and viewing the “Calendar Settings” tab.

A screenshot of four tabs: Calendar Settings, Session Setup, Mentorship Limits, Pause Sessions.

Avoid burnout

Limit sessions each month

Providing mentorship is a rewarding but intensive endeavor. Too many calls can be draining, so we allow mentors to limit the number of calls a month they receive. This could be anywhere from 1 to 10 sessions per month—it’s up to you! You can set this number under “Mentorship Limits.” For example, this mentor has a limit of 3 sessions per month.

A screenshot of the “Mentorship Limits” module in Merit with a dropdown for the number of sessions per month. — Select how many sessions at most you want per month under “Mentorship Limits.”

Once you hit your monthly limit, we let members know you’re unavailable—but they can ask to be notified when you’re available again. And we suggest other mentors they can meet with, so no member hits a dead end when seeking mentorship.

When a mentor hits their monthly session limit, we let members know and suggest other mentors for them to chat with.

Protect your time

You want to offer your time as a mentor—but you want to make sure you’re only scheduled for calls at times that work best for you. With Merit, you can specify the days and times you’re available and select a calendar to check for conflicts.

Set your availability

Maybe you’re available Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Wednesday mornings. Maybe the best time of the week to meet for you is Friday afternoon. Merit lets you select days of the week and times that work best for you.

Under Calendar settings, select the days of the week you’re available, then enter the hours you’re available on those days. If you have different windows for different days of the week, click the green plus circle to add an additional set of days and times.

Note: Times are entered by 24 hours (i.e., military time). So in the below example, the mentor is available on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 4 PM and on Wednesdays from 9 AM to 1 PM.

A screenshot of the Merit calendar settings with two rows: one row with Tuesday and Thursday selected with time window of 14:00 to 16:00 and Wednesday, 9:00 to 13:00. — Merit’s calendar settings let you set which days of the week and times you’re available to mentor.

Pro tip: Make sure to set your time zone so that the hours you set are accurate! Click the box to the right of 🌎 What is your timezone? to select yours.

Check for conflicts

Managing multiple calendars is everyone’s least favorite thing. It leads to calendar Tetris, accidental conflicts, and missed meetings. On Merit, you can pick a calendar that Merit will check for any conflicts. If you’re busy, Merit will hide those time slots from your profile.

Screenshot of the Merit product with options to change which account’s calendar is used for conflicts. — You can pick which account you’d like Merit to check for conflicts.

Pro tip: Sign up for Merit with your personal email, but use your work email for conflicts. If you sign up with your work email, you may accidentally have trouble accessing your account after changing jobs. But because most conflicts are through work calendars, use your work calendar in your Mentor Settings. (You can update your Merit account email under “My settings.”)

Get enough lead time

Worried that someone will book a session with you for the same or the next day? You can specify the number of days in advance folks must book with you so that you’re never caught off guard for a session. You can set it up to 20 days in advance. This mentor's profile requires at least a week's notice for a session.

A screenshot asking “When is the latest notice for getting a session?” next to a dropdown to the right. — Select between 1 and 20 days under the dropdown to ensure you get enough notice before a session happens.

Focus on the conversations that matter to you

Choose your topics

As a mentor, you probably have some areas where you feel like you have more experience to offer. For example, if you’re a product manager, you probably feel comfortable talking about setting product vision and strategy but maybe not technical career paths. If you’re an engineering manager, you might want to talk to folks about leading a time for the first time but possibly not design skills.

You can choose which topics appear on your profile, and you can also limit if members can book with you about any topic—or just those topics you’ve selected.

To select topics, click “Edit Topics” to the top-right of Calendar Settings.

A screenshot with the heading “Calendar Settings” with a button that says “Edit Topics” to the right. — Set which topics display on your profile by clicking “Edit Topics.”

Then, browse the topics available and click “Join” to add a topic and “Leave” to remove a topic. Click “Finish” when you’re done.

A screenshot of the Edit Topics modal with an option to search, filter by Job Role or Motivation, clear filters, and sort. Each topic has an emoji, a title, and a description with a button to leave or join. — Change the topics that display on your profile.

If you want to allow members to book you to talk to you about any topic, regardless of those you’ve selected, toggle on “Do you want open-ended sessions?” If you prefer that members only book about the topics you’ve chosen, turn off this toggle. This mentor has specified that members can book on any topic.

A screenshot titled “Do you want open-ended sessions?” with a toggle to the right. — Toggle on to allow members to book with you about any topic. Toggle off to limit what folks can book time with you about.

Activate session requests

If the idea of having people be able to just book time on your calendar stresses you out, have no fear. Maybe your calendar is unpredictable; maybe you just want to be sure that the people booking time with you are asking about the things you can help with. Either way, you have the option of approving every session that comes in.

Just toggle “Do you want to approve every session?” Each time a member wants to meet with you, you’ll receive an email with the specific time slot they’re requesting as well as what they want to talk about. You'll have the option to accept or reject the time requested.

screenshot of a toggle titled “Do you want to approve every session?” — Toggle on “Do you want to approve every session?” to receive email requests whenever someone wants to meet with you.

Forget about video links

Unless you have a seamless integration, managing meetings might be annoying by having to set calendar links. Merit handles all this under the hood with a Zoom integration so that any session scheduled with you automatically has a Zoom link attached.

If you prefer that folks use your own personal meeting link, you can set enter the link in your settings and click ”Update Link.” It will be added to any session booked with you.

A screenshot of the Merit product with a field to enter a video link in a field next to a button that says “Update Link.” — If you prefer to use your own personal meeting link, enter it under “How should mentees video call you?”

Take breaks—life happens

Throughout your time as a mentor, you may go on vacation, take leave, or just want a break from mentoring. Work ebbs and flows over time, and situations evolve.

You can set vacation dates or temporarily pause sessions whenever you need to.

If you know the dates you’ll be unavailable to mentor—like for time off or a leave—click “Create vacation dates” under “Pause Sessions.” We’ll make sure your calendar is unavailable for those dates.

A screenshot with the question “Going on vacation or taking a leave?” next to a button that says “Create vacation dates.” — Creating vacation dates will remove availability during your vacation window.

For example, if you're taking a 3-month parental leave, you can set those dates in the "Start Date" and "End Date" fields.

A screenshot with two fields for start and end date and a text field for the reason. — Set the start and end date for your leave or vacation or leave.

If you’re looking to take a break and aren’t sure when you’ll be available again, just click “Pause sessions” and fill out the form.

A screenshot with the question “Need to take a break from sessions?” next to a button to the right that says “Pause Sessions.” — Pause sessions whenever you need a break.

If you’re comfortable letting us know, select why you’re pausing sessions and provide any context you’d like to share. After pausing sessions, you can resume sessions at any time.

A screenshot of the Pause Sessions modal with radio buttons with reasons for pausing and a free text form for additional details. At the bottom is a red button that says “Pause Sessions.” — Include any information you’re comfortable sharing. Pausing isn’t permanent; you can start accepting sessions again whenever you’re ready.

We’ll show on your profile that you’re not available for sessions but suggest other mentors for folks to talk to.

Whenever you’re ready, come back to the Mentor Settings and click to resume sessions.

A modal titled “Want to start accepting sessions again?” with a green button at the bottom that says “Resume Sessions.” — Resuming sessions is quick and easy.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure at any point what your calendar will look like based on the changes you’ve made, you can see what your calendar looks like by clicking “Preview calendar” at the top right. It will open what time slots will appear on your calendar.

Not yet a mentor on Merit but want to become one? Applying is easy, and you can get started mentoring today!

Become a mentor