BLOG #5: MENTOR INTERVIEW

In order to gain a better sense your workplace experience, it is important that you have a strong understanding of whom your mentor is, as well as how and why they do what they do. To demonstrate this understanding, you are required to conduct and complete a narrative write-up of an informational interview with your mentor. The objective of the interview is to be able to ‘paint a portrait’ in writing of your mentor (both professionally and personally) and provide "real-life" information about the career field you are exposed to during your WLE.

Reading books and magazine articles and exploring the Internet are only one way of finding out about the world of work. Your interview and narrative ‘portrait’ will help you and your peers better understand the world of work and the myriad ways that people arrive at the work they do. These interviews will be used by other students as a direct way to research, gather information and explore career options.

The success of your interview will depend in part on how well you craft questions to find out as much as possible about:
• who your mentor is and what she is about (what’s her story?)
• what exactly his job is and requires or entails (what exactly does he do?)
• how she got this job or how he got involved in this job (what did she do before, etc…?)
• what training/education she has (related and/or unrelated to the work he does)
• what she likes/dislikes (about life, work and/or the world)
• what he does in his free time, what inspires her, etc…

For this assignment you need to:
1. Brainstorm, and then further refine, a list of effective questions to ask your mentor during an interview so that you can create a comprehensive portrait of them. (Of course, you should be prepared to ask follow-up questions to your mentor’s responses, and allow the interview to take on a life of its own.)
2. Establish a time and date to conduct the interview (this may or may not be during your regular WLE visit)
3. Conduct the interview (prepared with framing questions)
4. Transcribe or write-up your notes from the interview
5. Craft a polished narrative portrait of your mentor using his or her responses to your interview questions.


Requirements of the final narrative:
• Professional in appearance and structure
• Engaging and interesting to read (your audience is other students exploring potential career or life choices)
• Posted on-line (blog) for your mentor and other students to review
• 3-4 typed, double-spaced, pages (pre-blog)