Frequently Asked Questions - Mentees

Woohoo we’re so excited you’re ready to request your first 1:1 mentoring session with our community. 

Here’s how to get your first session booked in:

• Click ‘mentoring’ from your Dashboard
• Select the topics you’d love help with from the selection bar
• Browse our list of expert mentors and click ‘select’ on any you’d like to meet with 
• Once you’ve chosen your mentors click ‘check availability’
• Select up to 3 dates and times that you’re available to meet with your chosen mentor(s)
• Select your knowledge level on the topic 
• Share as much information as possible in the text box to help your mentor prepare for your session
• Click ‘submit’!

We’ll then send your request to our mentors and we’ll let you know if anyone can make the times you’ve selected!

If one (or more!) of our mentors accepts your request we will send you a confirmation email with the call details. This information will also be shown on your Dashboard so you can always check the details at any time.

When a session is confirmed, you will receive an email and notice on your Dashboard with all the call details. Please note: this is not automatically added to your calendar.

Make sure you press the “Add To Calendar” button in the email or on your Dashboard. This connects with all major calendars including Google Calendar, iCal and Outlook, and allows you to add this event to your online calendar.

If you need to cancel your session for any reason, please do so through our platform. If you choose to cancel the event in your online calendar, it doesn’t automatically cancel on our platform, so you’ll need to log in and cancel the session that way 😊

As all of our mentors are volunteers, they will only have a certain amount of time each week to fulfil 1:1 requests.

As a result, on some occasions the mentor you’ve selected may not be able to meet you for a 1:1. If this happens, we’ll try our best to match you with another one of our amazing mentors so that you can get the support you need quickly.

We know time is of the essence and we have thousands of mentors who are ready to help, but if you don’t want us to do this, you can let us know in your Preferences 😊

If you need to reschedule a call you have booked, it’s no problem!

Simply:

• Find the session you need to reschedule on your Dashboard
• Select ‘Cancel/reschedule’ and click ‘reschedule’
• Select a new date and time

We’ll then send your reschedule request to your mentor. If they’re able to accommodate the reschedule request, you’ll be notified that the call has been successfully rescheduled 😊

If you need to cancel a call you have booked, it’s no problem!

Simply:

• Find the session you need to cancel on your Dashboard
• Select ‘Cancel/reschedule’ and click ‘cancel’
• Share your cancellation reason with us (it helps us to improve our services!)

We’ll then send you an email to confirm the cancellation.

We also recommend sending your mentor a message to let them know you’re cancelling out of courtesy 😊

We always try to match you with your chosen mentors, however, as our mentors are all volunteers, they won’t always have the time each week to help everyone!

If the volunteer you selected is not available, or does not respond to your request in time, we’ll send your request to other experts and see who can help.

If you prefer not to be matched with alternative mentors in these instances, please let us know by heading to your Account Preferences and selecting ‘no’ on mentor substitution.
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If we’ve scheduled a session with someone you don’t want to meet with, simply press the cancel button.

If a mentor has proposed another time slot to you and you can’t accept it for any reason – don’t worry!

All you need to do is click ‘decline’ when the invite comes through to your Dashboard.

Once you decline a session you can’t undo it, but if you made a mistake it’s okay!

You can always follow the steps in ‘how do I request a session’ and choose the declined mentor as your chosen expert.

This will then send them a new request and they’ll hopefully be able to accept and support you on your journey.

Yes. If you’ve had a great call with a volunteer and would like to meet with them again, simply head to your Messaging Centre, find their chat and click ‘request follow-up call’ in the right hand corner.

Once you’ve finished a session, Digital Boost will send you a short feedback form to fill out on your Dashboard.

You’ll be asked to rate your mentoring experience and leave a comment about the session.

You can choose to keep this anonymous and any really lovely comments we share with your mentor on their Dashboard to let them know they did a great job!

You’ll be asked for feedback after every session and we’d really appreciate it if you could always try and respond each time as it helps our mentors to improve and us to keep developing our services.

Once you’ve shared your feedback on the site, we’ll review it and display any amazing feedback for the mentor on their Dashboard so they can see what a great job they did!

If you asked us to share your feedback anonymously, your name won’t be displayed when the mentor sees the feedback.

If you’ve left constructive feedback for the mentor, the team delivers this kindly to the mentor so that they can improve for future sessions.

No, right now we don’t allow this – this is so that we can protect the privacy of our volunteers.

But you can easily browse our mentor select page and find incredible mentors to connect and speak to!

Simply:

• Log in and head to your Account preferences
• Select ‘Mentoring Preferences’ → Matching with Mentors
• Change your preference to “No, I do not which to accept alternatives to those I picked.”

We’ll then only send your requests to the specific mentors you select 😊

To join a 1:1 mentoring session at the scheduled time, simply press the “Join Call” button in your Dashboard or email.

As all our sessions are done via video call, you won’t receive an incoming call!  So please join your call at the time of the session and your mentor will meet you there.

We are truly sorry to hear that the volunteer was not able to join the call.

If you’re still on the call, you might want to try sending them a message via your Dashboard to let them know you’re there.

If they still don’t show, please let us know by using the feedback form on your Dashboard under the tab ‘Completed’.

From there you can select ‘Leave feedback for the Volunteer, select 0 and check the first checkbox ‘The mentor did not show up’.

We’ll then contact your mentor to find out what happened and see how we can support both you and the mentor.

Simply head to ‘Preferences’ from your Dashboard and select ‘learning topics’ and you can select/unselect topics to update your preferences. Make sure to hit save before you finish so we can update your profile!

We use the learning topics on your profile to show you mentors we think will be able to support you!

All of the recommended mentors shown on your Dashboard will be experts in your chosen learning topics and if you’d like to book a session with one of the mentors, simply click ‘view mentor’ and then ‘request 1:1 call’.

As part of the registration process, we ask for some personal and professional information.

This is so that we can:
1. Match you with suitable potential mentors.
2. Help potential mentors understand if they have the right experience to help you when you’re submitting requests.
3. Report to partners and the government about the impact of our services. We do this with aggregate, anonymised information.

Simply log in to your account and select ‘Account’ in the top right hand corner. You’ll be able to update your profile and settings there!