Thursday, June 26, 2008

Millennials Mentoring Millennials

Yesterday, I had a great virtual meeting via Yahoo IM with one of my former students. He is interested in a Ed.D./Ph.D. program and he had a few questions before applying to one in the area. The conversation perpetuated my interest in millennial mentoring.

Since it seems that millennials in the workplace are having such a hard time connecting with Gen X and the Baby boomers, they should mentor themselves. It also seems that other generations think that millennials have a know-it-all personality and want to become the CEO within a ten year span. This is impractical, but we (millennials) do have ambition in the workplace.

This ambition that derives from my generational birthright drove my need to create a list of best practices for millennial mentoring.

1. Provide millennial professionals an opportunity to network with other professionals their age.

2. When initial connections are made, enable millennial professionals to foster a long-term connection by promoting linkedin.com and facebook.com.

3. Explain the importance of face-to-face and virtual mentoring to millennial professionals. If members of this generation realize the importance of peer mentoring, they will be more inclined to sustain the connection.

Please contribute any additional ideas! :)

Sincerely,

Millennial Professor

2 comments:

  1. I am really glad that you wrote about this topic! I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I am going to contact my graduate school to see if they have any current students that need mentoring. A lot of individuals provided me with insight on academic libraries, etc, and I would love to "give back" to future generations.

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  2. Thanks Amy! I see that you are going to publish an article.... This IS giving back to future generations!

    BTW - The "scholarly article" is the poll category that I voted for!

    -MP

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