Mentoring FAQ

A type of program to run structured mentoring from end to end: enroll mentors and mentees, pair them with your rules, guide each pair through milestones, and give every pair a shared page to book meetings and track their progress. See What is a mentoring program?.

Any organization that wants to run mentoring at scale: onboarding buddy programs, reverse mentoring, DEI and ERG circles, leadership development or classic senior and junior mentoring. If you can define who the mentors and the mentees are, RandomCoffee can pair, guide and track them.

Mentoring programs are an add-on, available on the Pro and Enterprise plans. To add it, contact your sales representative or your Customer Success Manager. See Availability.

In “Programs”, click “Create New Program”, then “Create from scratch”, and choose “Mentorship”. Your mentoring programs show a purple “Mentorship” tag, so you can tell them apart from your other programs. See Create a mentoring program.

Two options: select them from your existing audiences, or share an open enrollment link so that people register by themselves. Open enrollment adds everyone who joined to a static audience. See Registration.

Yes, for example to mentor on one skill and be mentored on another. Use a “Multiple Choice” category with the values “Mentor” and “Mentee”, so that members can hold one role or both, and add them to both audiences.

Yes. With open enrollment, attach a registration form to the program and set up its enrichment: each respondent joins the program, and their answers fill your categories for your matching rules. See Registration.

Yes. If admins are part of your mentor or mentee audiences, turn on “Exclude Admins from Intros” in the “Registration” settings.

You define the rules (skills, seniority, department or any other category) and RandomCoffee proposes the pairs. You can let RandomCoffee send them automatically, or review, adjust and approve every pair before anyone is notified. See Matching mode.

A “Category overlap” rule between two “Multiple Choice” categories that share the same options: one for mentor skills, one for mentee skills. RandomCoffee then pairs people on the skills they have in common. See Skill-based matching.

Yes, with “Mentor rematching”: set a fixed number of mentees for every mentor, or let each mentor choose in a “Number” category. Some mentors can take one mentee, others three. See Mentor rematching.

“Optimize people participation” generates the best possible pairs for everyone, even if some rules are not perfectly met. “Optimize matching quality” only creates pairs that fully meet your rules, which may leave some people unmatched.

“Admin-led”: pairs are generated for you to review and adjust before anything is sent. “Automatic”: pairs are generated and sent on your scheduled dates, without review. See Mentoring sessions and matches.

A step of the mentoring journey, in other words one of the meetings of a pair. For example: Kickoff, Assessment, Deep dive, Projects, Reflection, Wrap-up. Each milestone has its own name and goal. See Agenda.

A session is the event that creates the pairs, for example a new round of pairs every quarter. A milestone is one of the meetings a mentor and a mentee have within that session. A session includes all the milestones of your program. See Sessions and milestones.

Yes, booking is built in. Pairs book each meeting from their mentoring page, then mark it as done once it took place. You follow the meetings booked and completed in the “Results” tab of the program. See Your mentoring page.

You choose the channel (email, Slack or Microsoft Teams) and customize the opt-in and match messages, with a preview or a test email before going live. See Personalize opt-in and match messages.

Yes, with forms attached to the program. The opt-in form appears after a member accepts the opt-in, which is useful to collect data for your matching rules. The post-match form appears on the mentoring page, in each milestone. See Program forms.

Yes, with program notes. Participants see them on the registration page (with open enrollment) and on their mentoring page. See Program notes.

The shared page each pair gets once matched: profiles, milestones and progress, meetings, shared notes, resources, and a “Send a message” button to reach each other. See Your mentoring page.

Participants who are not signed in to RandomCoffee verify their email address with a 6-digit code sent by email. Only the members of the pair can open the page.

First name, last name and email, plus the categories you choose in “Profile field visibility”, in the “Participants” settings. See Participants.

Yes. You can run different tracks in parallel, for example onboarding buddies and reverse mentoring.

The “Support Contacts” you choose in the “Participants” settings. They must be administrators of your RandomCoffee workspace. Participants reach them from the “Contact your administrator.” link at the bottom of the mentoring page.

Yes. Mentoring works with broadcasts for your internal communication, forms to collect data and feedback, and notes to share resources.