Launching WP Mentor

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Recently I made a post about becoming a WordPress mentor and the feedback has been really great so far. With that, I figured why not give this little initiative it’s own home?

I know a lot of us are super helpful on Twitter and in the .org forums, but perhaps we can move the needle a bit further by working one on one. I know that I’ve found great success and satisfaction mentoring students at my local community college, so I think the same can be achieved here.

So let’s see how WP Mentor does when it stands on it’s own two legs.

Don’t be scared

If you’re looking to become a mentee, but you’re afraid to put yourself out there, crush that fear right now. 

Hell, I’m looking for a mentor, so what are you waiting for?

This doesn’t have to carry a lot of overhead.

I’ll let you decide how you want to work with one another, but I don’t think this has to carry a lot of overhead. In fact, it will be more effective if it doesn’t. I’m planning on dedicating an hour or so a month to a small startup team that’s looking for some pointers. You could do an hour a day if you wanted to, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Same goes for folks looking to be a mentee, don’t expect 100% access to your mentor — unless she says so.

The great thing is, this can be whatever you want it to be. I don’t know where this is going, I’m just a fan of testing little projects to see what they become.

Post your mentorship

I’m using Mike Jolley’s WP Job Manager to power the site for now. It seemed like the quickest way for me to put something together with little overhead. It looks like it will do the trick, but I’m open to feedback.

There’s 2 “job” categories: Mentor & Mentee

Once you satisfy your posting, you can log back in and say that the job is “filled” — should be pretty snazzy. Feel free to fill out as much or as little as the info needed per listing.

Merry Christmas everyone — thanks for making 2013 a great year for me and my team!


Comments

5 responses to “Launching WP Mentor”

  1. This is a great idea Matt. Added my listing as a mentee looking for a mentor from the community.

  2. Hey Matt,

    We’ve just added auto-locations to WP Job Manager – in a nutshell, it adds Google-powered auto locations when searching / submitting. Dunnow if it’ll help with WP Mentor, but check it out at http://tinygiantstudios.co.za/store/wp-job-manager-auto-location if you’re keen…

  3. This is a neat idea, but I think the site really needs some guiding information on it. Although it’s ultimately up to the mentor and mentee (I’ve never liked that word) to discuss and plan what amount of time is given by either party, it’s all a bit too open-ended at the moment.

    If I submit a job listing advertising myself as a mentor, what am I letting myself in for? Will I get people asking me questions straight away? Will I get people asking me to mentor them through a summer-long project? Will I get business owners looking to take advantage of free advice?

    Each job listing should require a bit more information (ie. specific details of what you’d like to be mentored on) along with what sort of hours the mentee is willing to put in, what sort of timescale they’re thinking, what they’re expecting from the mentor, etc.

    It’d be great to see an ‘About’ page too, briefly explaining what the goal of the site is and what people should expect from their listings.

    1. Thanks for stopping by John!

      I think you’re right about there needs to be more structure — or at least that was my immediate concern as well. On the flip side, no one has come to me with any issues of abuse or anything on that level yet.

      I do plan on giving the site more love as soon as I can get around to it. Thanks for the feedback and I hope you find WPMentor of some value.

    2. While I agree with your concerns, I think that the details are quite vague, depending on each mentor’s approach and flow. Personally I’ve been handling such requests via email, and you could place your requirements within the job itself or post them on your site like Chris or I did. Assuming that the mentee is serious, he/she should do some extra research for their mentor either way.

      However, adding a few fields when posting a job for time zone/timing/approach might be a good improvement.

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