Questions to Ask When Evaluating a Mentoring Program
For whoever has to judge whether a mentoring program is working: the coordinator who runs it, an HR or learning lead, a school administrator, or the sponsor who pays for it. The list follows the order of a review, at the midpoint or the end of a round: a few questions for everyone, then the matching, the meetings, what changed for mentees and what mentors needed, and last the ones that settle whether the program continues, changes or stops. Most fit a short survey or a fifteen-minute interview, and several are worth putting to both halves of a pair separately.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Overall
Overall, how well has the mentoring program worked for you?
Why ask it
Put it to mentees and mentors in the same words, with a five-point scale and a line for the reason. The score matters less than the gap between the two groups: mentors who rate it high while their mentees rate it low are describing different programs, and the reasons tell you which one is real.
What were you hoping to get from the program when you signed up, and did you get it?
Why ask it
People join for different things: a promotion, a way into a new field, someone to talk to, a line on an application. Sort the answers by what was hoped for before you count the yeses, because a program can serve the career planners well and leave those who wanted a sounding board with nothing.
What has been the most useful thing to come out of the mentoring so far?
Why ask it
Read these for how concrete they are. 'She walked me through my first budget review' is evidence. 'It was nice to have someone to talk to' is goodwill, which is worth having but will not carry a funding request on its own. Keep the concrete ones, with permission, for the report.
What one thing would you change about how the program is run?
Why ask it
Limiting it to one forces a choice, and the same choice turning up across a dozen replies is your to-do list. Tally the answers under a few headings such as matching, time, structure and communication. At a midpoint review, pick the most common one you can fix before the round ends and tell people you have.
Would you recommend the program to a colleague or classmate, and what would you tell them first?
Why ask it
The yes or no gives you a number for the summary. The second half is the useful part: whatever people would warn a friend about, such as 'make sure your manager knows' or 'ask for a mentor outside your team', belongs in the welcome email for the next round.
When you started, how clear was it what the program expected of you?
Why ask it
Mentees and mentors both get this one. When mentors were clear and mentees were not, the briefing probably went to one side only. Ask what they assumed and later found was wrong, such as who books the meetings or how long the pairing lasts, and put those points into the kickoff.
How well did the people running the program keep in touch with you once it started?
Why ask it
Some programs go quiet between the launch event and the closing survey, and participants notice. Offer 'too little', 'about right' and 'too much', then ask which message or check-in was worth having. A single reminder timed for the weeks when pairs drift may do more than a monthly newsletter.
Matching
How well suited were you and your mentoring partner?
Why ask it
Collect this from both people in a pair and keep the two answers linked. Two high scores or two low ones are easy to read. A split is the interesting case: one person thought it was going well while the other was being polite, and a single follow-up call will tell you which.
What made the match work, or what was missing from it?
Why ask it
Answers tend to fall into shared background, the right kind of experience, and simply getting along. Note which of these people name for the pairs that lasted. Rapport named far more often than job or subject fit is a hint that the sign-up form collects the wrong information.
Did you have any say in who you were matched with, and did you want more?
Why ask it
Programs range from mentees picking from profiles to a coordinator pairing everyone by hand, and neither is right everywhere. What you are checking is whether people who had no say were told why they were paired. An unexplained match gets the blame the first time a meeting goes flat.
What did the sign-up form ask that turned out not to matter, and what should it have asked?
Why ask it
Mentors and mentees both know by now which questions were noise. The additions they suggest are often practical: which days they are free, whether they want to meet in person, how blunt they like advice to be. Rewrite the form from these answers before the next intake opens.
How long did you wait between signing up and your first meeting?
Why ask it
Check the replies against your own dates if you kept them. A long wait can cool people off, and a pair that starts late may struggle to find a rhythm. A delay in the matching is yours to shorten. Where pairs took weeks to agree on a date, a fixed kickoff session at which they meet on the spot removes the problem.
Was your mentoring partner from your own team, department or class, and did that help or get in the way?
Why ask it
Closeness makes meetings easy to arrange and advice more specific. It also makes it harder for a mentee to speak freely about a manager or a class the mentor knows well. Several people saying they held back is the case for matching across teams or class years next time.
Did you know what to do if the match was not working?
Why ask it
People in a poor match tend to say nothing and let the meetings lapse, so every 'no' here is a possible stalled pair. The remedy is cheap: a named person to tell, a check-in around the third meeting when you ask directly, and a rematch that carries no blame for either side.
Meetings
How many times have you met since the program started?
Why ask it
Compare the number with what the program asked for, and compare the two halves of each pair. People tend to recall more meetings than took place, so where calendar invites or a meeting log exist, trust those first. Everything else in the review reads differently once you know which pairs met eight times and which met twice.
Did the program run for the right length of time, and were the meetings too frequent, too rare or about right?
Why ask it
Read the two halves separately. Pairs who say it ended just as they got going are a case for a longer run or an optional extension, and pairs who ran dry early are a case for a shorter one with a clear finish. Split the replies by role as well, because a monthly hour can feel thin to a mentee and plenty to a mentor.
Who usually set up the meetings?
Why ask it
Many programs expect the mentee to drive, but a junior person chasing a senior one for a slot may give up after two unanswered messages. Look at whether the pairs that kept going fixed their dates at the start. Where they did, make booking the whole series a task for the first meeting.
When a meeting was canceled or never happened, what got in the way?
Why ask it
Workload, travel, exams and shift patterns are scheduling problems, and protected time or a shorter format can ease them. 'We ran out of things to talk about' is a different problem and calls for prompts or goals. Separate the two before you conclude the program needs more hours.
What did you spend most of your meetings talking about?
Why ask it
Ask for topics, not for anything private, and set them beside the program's stated purpose. A program meant to develop future leaders whose pairs mostly discussed this week's project is working as coaching on the day job. That may be fine, but it is not what the sponsor was told.
Did you set goals at the start, and when did you last look at them?
Why ask it
Plenty of pairs fill in a goals sheet in the first week and never open it again. That does not mean the mentoring failed, only that the sheet is paperwork. Find the pairs who kept returning to their goals, ask what made them worth returning to, and build the next sheet around that.
Did you meet in person, online or both, and which worked better for you?
Why ask it
This tells you what to offer next round and who the default left out. Watch for sites, shifts or campuses where meeting in person was never possible, and for people who say video was fine for advice but that they never felt comfortable enough on it to raise anything hard.
Were you clear about what stayed private between the two of you, and what would not?
Why ask it
Mentees tend to hold back when they suspect the conversation reaches their manager or teacher. 'Not sure' from many people means the ground rules were never said out loud. Where mentees are students or minors there may be things a mentor is required to pass on, so ask whoever is responsible for student welfare or HR where you are what the rule is, and put it in the briefing.
Was there something you wanted to bring up with your mentor and never did?
Why ask it
This one is for mentees, and it works better in an interview than on a form. You are not asking what the thing was. A yes followed by 'I didn't want to waste her time' points to mentors who seem rushed, and 'it didn't feel like that kind of conversation' points to meetings that stayed on safe ground.
If your pair has stopped meeting, when did it stop and why?
Why ask it
The people who can answer are the least likely to fill in a survey, so send it to them directly or pick up the phone. Stopping after the first or second meeting points at the match or the start. Stopping in the middle points at time. Either reply teaches you more than another glowing one from a pair that thrived.
For mentees
What can you do now that you could not do, or would not have tried, before the program?
Why ask it
This is as close as a survey gets to measuring change, so give it the biggest answer box. Look for verbs: presented, applied, negotiated, asked. Replies that are mostly about feeling supported, with few naming something done, describe a program that provides comfort. Check that against what it was funded for.
What have you done differently because of something your mentor said?
Why ask it
It asks for one traceable link between a conversation and an action, which is the strongest evidence a small program can offer. A mentee who cannot think of anything after several months may have had pleasant meetings with nothing at stake. Follow up by asking what kind of advice the mentor tended to give.
Did you usually leave a meeting with something to try or think over?
Why ask it
A plain yes or no that separates working sessions from friendly catch-ups. Follow with 'what was the last one?', since a mentee who can name it at once is in a pair that is doing something. Mostly no across many pairs is a reason to give mentors a closing habit: end by asking what the mentee will do before next time.
Has the program changed what you want to do next, or how you plan to get there?
Why ask it
A changed mind counts as a result. A student who drops the idea of law after talking to a lawyer, or an analyst who decides management is not for them, got what mentoring is for. Record these alongside the promotions and applications so the report does not only count moves upward.
Compared with when you started, how confident are you in the situations you joined the program to get better at?
Why ask it
Tie it to a named situation taken from what they wrote at sign-up, such as speaking in meetings, interviewing or dealing with senior people. If you asked the same thing at sign-up, repeat it word for word so the two can be compared. Without that baseline, treat the reply as a story and not a measurement.
Do you feel more a part of this organization or school than you did before the program?
Why ask it
Where the program exists to help new hires or new students settle in, this is the result to report, ahead of any skill. Ask who else they now know because of their mentor: a mentee who met one person has a friend in the building, and one who was introduced around has a way in. Leave it out of a program that pairs people across organizations.
What did you want from your mentor that you did not get?
Why ask it
Introductions, honest criticism and more of the mentor's own story are the kinds of thing mentees name, and each is a line for mentor training. When contacts come up again and again, decide whether the program has been promising sponsorship that it never asked mentors to give.
Has anyone else noticed a change in you, such as a manager, a teacher or a teammate?
Why ask it
Self-report is all most programs have, and this borrows a second pair of eyes without a separate survey. If you want to go further and put one question to the manager or teacher directly, check first that the mentee is comfortable with you doing so.
How much of what changed for you would have happened anyway, without a mentor?
Why ask it
Place it straight after the questions about change, while the examples are still in front of them. People are often frank here, and it keeps the report from claiming every promotion in the cohort. 'I would have gotten there, but a year later' is a fair answer and a usable one.
Did the mentoring ever make things harder for you?
Why ask it
It rarely gets asked, and it turns up real costs: a manager who resented the time away, advice that clashed with what a supervisor wanted, a mentor who talked mostly about themselves. One or two such replies call for a quiet conversation. A cluster around one mentor means that person should not be matched again without one.
Do you expect to stay in touch with your mentor once the program ends?
Why ask it
Relationships that carry on unprompted are a result the program can claim even though it stops counting them. Where nearly everyone says no, find out whether the ending was handled at all. A closing meeting where each pair agrees what happens next costs nothing to add.
For mentors
Did you feel prepared for your first meeting as a mentor?
Why ask it
A first-time mentor may have been handed a name and an email address and little else. Ask what they wish they had been told: how to open, what the mentee had been promised, how much to talk about themselves. Put together, those answers are the outline of a one-hour briefing.
Would you mentor again in the next round, and what would need to be different?
Why ask it
Count the yeses, the conditional yeses and the noes separately. The conditions are the valuable part: 'a mentee nearer my field', 'not during year-end', 'only if my manager is told'. A no from someone whose pair went well deserves a call, because the reason is more likely to be time or recognition than the mentoring.
What came up that you did not know how to handle?
Why ask it
Expect a mentee who went quiet, a complaint about the mentee's manager, a request for a reference, or something personal and heavy. Collect these into a short 'what to do when' page. For anything touching wellbeing or safety, the page should send mentors to whoever handles that in your organization, not ask them to deal with it alone.
When you needed help, who did you go to, and did you get it?
Why ask it
If the answer is 'nobody' or 'another mentor I happened to know', the program has a launch event and no support behind it. A named contact and one check-in partway through is a reasonable floor. From those who did reach the coordinator, find out how quickly a reply came.
How much time did mentoring really take, counting preparation and messages between meetings?
Why ask it
Recruitment material tends to quote the meeting hour and nothing else. The true figure lets you describe the role honestly next time, which may cost a few sign-ups and save several dropouts. A wide range is a reason to look at what the busiest mentors were doing, since some of it may be work the program should take off them.
Did your manager or department treat mentoring as part of your job?
Why ask it
Mentors who do it unseen, on their own time, are often the ones who quietly decline next year. Ask whether it was mentioned in a review, counted toward workload or merely tolerated. How this is handled differs from one employer or school to the next, so take the replies to whoever sets workload where you are.
Which of the training sessions, guides and check-ins did you use, and which could go?
Why ask it
List each item by name so people can tick it. Anything hardly anyone opened is a candidate for cutting, and cutting something is a visible way to show mentors the review was read. Before dropping a session, check whether people skipped it because it was unhelpful or because it clashed with their calendar.
What did you get out of mentoring yourself?
Why ask it
Mentors are more likely to come back when there is something in it for them: a clearer view of what junior staff or students are dealing with, practice at listening, a reminder of why they chose the work. Quote these, with permission, when you recruit. A mentor who met often and can name nothing is likely to be a one-round volunteer.
Did your mentee arrive with something to work on, or did you have to carry the conversation?
Why ask it
When many mentors say they carried it, the gap is in how mentees were prepared, not in the mentors. A short briefing on bringing one question or one decision to each meeting is a simple remedy. Read this beside what the mentees said their meetings covered.
What have you learned from your mentee that the people running this place should hear?
Why ask it
Mentors pick up things a staff or student survey can miss: why new hires in one team leave, which course is losing people, what first-years find confusing. Gather these without naming mentees and pass the themes to the sponsor. It is a benefit of the program that seldom makes it into the program's own report.
The decision
What was the program set up to change, and what would we expect to see if it had worked?
Why ask it
Put this to the sponsor before you show them any results. If the answer is retention, a route into leadership or first-year students settling in, that is the yardstick, and satisfaction scores are supporting detail. A sponsor who cannot say has handed you the first recommendation: agree on a purpose before the next round.
How many pairs started, how many were still meeting at the end, and who dropped out?
Why ask it
Completion is the plainest number a program has, and it is easy to leave out of a write-up built on survey replies. Break the dropouts down by site, department, year or matching method and look for a pattern. A program where half the pairs lapse and the rest do well needs a better start, not a shutdown.
Who is the program not reaching?
Why ask it
Compare who took part with who it was meant for. Open sign-up tends to draw people who already have confidence and contacts. Count the applicants who were never matched too, and what they were told. A thin showing from the intended group points to how people are invited, and possibly to who the mentors are.
What does the program cost to run, counting the coordinator's hours and the mentors' time?
Why ask it
A budget line shows the events and the software and leaves out the largest cost, which is people's time. A rough total of hours is enough. It lets the sponsor weigh the program against other uses of the same effort, and it stops a cheap-looking program from being renewed on price alone.
How do participants compare with similar people who did not take part?
Why ask it
Retention, promotion, attendance or grades, depending on the setting, are what a sponsor will ask for. Report the comparison without calling it proof: people who volunteer for mentoring differ from those who do not before the first meeting happens. Check with HR or the school office which records you may use and how they must be handled where you are.
What would be lost if the program stopped tomorrow?
Why ask it
Ask the sponsor, two or three mentors and two or three mentees, then compare. If they name things that would happen another way, such as a manager's advice or an existing buddy program, a lighter version may do. If they name something nobody else provides, you have the case for keeping it in one sentence.
On what we have heard, should the program carry on as it is, carry on with changes, or stop?
Why ask it
Have each member of the review team write down one of the three before any discussion, so the first voice in the room does not set the answer. 'Carry on with changes' is the comfortable middle and tends to win by default, so anyone who chooses it has to name the change. The verdict goes in the first line of the report, ahead of the evidence.
If it continues, which two or three changes have to happen before the next round?
Why ask it
A review that ends in fifteen recommendations tends to change nothing. Pick the few that the earlier answers point to most often, attach a name and a date to each, and write down what you decided not to fix this time. The list of what you are leaving alone saves the next review from finding it all again.
Does the program depend on one person, and what happens if they move on?
Why ask it
A mentoring program is often one enthusiast's side project, with the matching logic and the contact list in their head. Ask the sponsor who would run it if that person left. If nobody can say, part of continuing is giving the role some hours and writing the process down.
What will we tell the people who answered these questions?
Why ask it
Settle this before the results meeting ends. A short message naming two things you heard and what will change is enough, and it is the reason people answer next time. Mentors in particular notice when a survey they filled in disappears without a word.
How to run a mentoring program review
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Planning the review
Start from the decision
A review exists to help someone decide whether the program carries on as it is, changes or stops. Find out who makes that call and when, and work backward. If the budget is set in March, results in April are a history lesson. Ask the sponsor the first question under The decision before you write a single survey item, so you know what they will count as success.
Midpoint and end are different jobs
At the midpoint you are looking for things you can still fix: pairs that never started, mentors without support, a match that needs redoing. Use Matching and Meetings and keep it to five or six questions. At the end you are judging results, so For mentees, For mentors and The decision carry the weight, and the verdict question near the end of the list is the one the whole review leads to. Asking about outcomes eight weeks in gets you guesses, because little has had time to change.
Pick the format for the question
Counts and ratings suit a short survey: how many meetings, how well suited, would you recommend. The why questions, and anything about what went unsaid or what made things harder, get thin answers on a form and full ones in a fifteen-minute conversation. A workable plan for a program of thirty pairs is one survey to everyone and interviews with six to eight people, chosen to include at least two whose pairs stalled.
Choose who does the asking
A mentee is unlikely to tell the coordinator who matched them that the match was poor, and a mentor is unlikely to tell HR that their manager begrudged the time. Where you can, have the interviews done by someone who did not run the program and has no say over the participants' careers or grades. If that is impossible, say plainly at the start what will and will not be passed on.
Use what you already hold
Sign-up forms, kickoff attendance, meeting logs and the dates pairs were introduced are evidence you do not need to ask for again. Pull them first. They shorten the survey and let you check recalled numbers against recorded ones.
Who gets which questions
Mentees
Send Overall, Matching, Meetings and For mentees. If you have to cut, keep what they can do now, what they did differently because of the mentor, and what they wanted and did not get. Those three cover the result, the cause and the gap.
Mentors
Send Overall, Matching, Meetings and For mentors. Mentors are volunteers with full calendars, so tell them how long the survey takes and keep that promise. The questions on preparation, time and whether their manager counted the work explain the answer that matters most for the next round: whether they would mentor again.
Sponsors and senior leaders
The decision is written for them and for the review team. Ask the purpose question early, then come back with the completion numbers, the cost in hours and two or three stories. A sponsor generally wants one page with the recommendation at the top.
Managers, teachers and parents
People around the mentee see change the mentee may not report. One or two questions is plenty: have you noticed a difference, and did the time away cause any difficulty. In a school or youth program, check your institution's own rules on consent and records before contacting parents or sharing anything a student said.
Both halves of a pair
For fit, meeting count and who arranged the meetings, ask both people and link the answers with a pair code in place of names. Disagreement inside a pair is some of the most useful information in the review, and it vanishes if you only look at group averages.
Making sense of what comes back
Look at who did not answer
Before reading a single reply, list who responded. If the replies come mostly from pairs that met regularly, the results describe the program at its best. Chase the silent pairs with one direct question about whether they are still meeting. What they say changes the picture more than another twenty satisfied replies would.
Meetings first, opinions second
Sort pairs by how often they met, then read the satisfaction and outcome answers within each group. A mentee who met twice and saw no change is telling you about scheduling. One who met ten times and saw no change is telling you about the mentoring itself. Mixing the two hides both problems.
Liking it is not the same as it working
High satisfaction with little reported change means people enjoyed the conversations. That has value, but name it for what it is. Low satisfaction with real change happens too, sometimes where a mentor was blunt. Report the two measures side by side and do not average them into one score.
Be modest about cause
A small program of volunteers cannot prove that mentoring caused a promotion or a better grade. What it can show is completion, what participants say changed, specific actions traced to specific conversations, and how participants compare with others, stated as a comparison. A report that says what it cannot show is easier for a sponsor to trust.
Sort every finding into keep, fix or stop
Give each theme one of three labels and an owner. Keep is what the pairs that thrived had in common. Fix is anything several people named that the coordinator can change, such as the form, the briefing or the timing. Stop is whatever nobody opened or attended. A table with those three columns is most of the report.
Where reviews go wrong
Surveying only the survivors
Sending the form to the current mailing list reaches the people who stayed. Those who withdrew, were never matched or drifted off in the second month are no longer on it, and they hold the answers you most need. Keep the original sign-up list and survey from that.
Promising anonymity a small program cannot deliver
With twelve pairs, 'a mentor in finance with a first-year mentee' is a name. Say confidential instead of anonymous, report themes without identifying detail, and never show a mentor their own mentee's comments. If a reply raises a concern about someone's safety or conduct, follow your organization's own procedure, and tell participants at the outset that this is the one exception.
Asking everything
This page is a bank to choose from, not a form to send whole. A busy volunteer is more likely to finish a short form than a long one, so settle on ten or twelve per person at most. Choose by what the decision needs, and drop any question whose answer would not change what you do.
Letting the coordinator grade their own work
The person who built the program is often the one reviewing it, and it is natural to read mixed results kindly. Have someone outside the program read the raw comments, or at least the critical ones, before the summary is written.
Reviewing and then going quiet
Participants who gave time to a survey and never heard back have little reason to answer the next one. Close with the last question under The decision: send a short note saying what you heard and what will change, even if the news is that the program is ending.