OVERVIEW FOR YEAR TWO MENTEES

Congratulations on completing year one of the Cargill Global Scholars Program (CGSP)! A signature
feature of the CGSP is the mentorship component, which seeks to help you nurture and grow your
academic and professional aspirations, and begin your journey of developing leadership competencies
so that you may one day advance new innovations and positively contribute to your communities. In
year two of the program, you will be paired with a mentor outside of your country to help expose
you to working across a global company.

As a mentee, you will work with your mentor in identifying your short and long term academic and
professional goals, and through your ongoing exchanges, your mentor will support you in reaching
those goals. We ask that you take your role as a mentee seriously and that you notify the Institute of
International Education (IIE) at Cargillglobalscholars@iie.org or Cargill contacts Lindsey Kaufmann
(lindsey_kaufmann@cargill.com) and Maria Rieger (maria_rieger@cargill.com) should you encounter
any issues in your relationship with your mentor.

Surveys will be administered at various intervals throughout the course of the mentorship program to
gauge the success of the program and determine whether any changes need to be introduced to
make the experience more rewarding for both the mentees and mentors. We ask that you commit to
completing and providing candid feedback at those times.

This handbook provides tools and guidelines to help lead you through your responsibilities as a
mentee.

MENTORSHIP GUIDELINES

Key terms that define a mentor: Guide, leader, motivator, teacher, energizer, trusted advisor. A
mentor is an individual with experience and expertise in a certain area or field who is willing to spend
his or her time imparting this experience on to another person to help them develop personally and
professionally.

Key terms that define a mentee: Inquisitive, eager learner, listener, active seeker of advice and
guidance. A mentee is an individual who is eager to learn and seek advice from someone with more
experience than themselves, who will help them grow and develop personally and professionally.

Mentoring is a one-to-one relationship based on encouragement, constructive comments, openness,

mutual trust, respect, and a willingness to learn and share.

BENEFITS OF THE CGSP MENTORING PROGRAM

 As a mentor, you will gain the most by listening to your scholar and understanding his or her
career and development goals, successes and failures, and by being open to feedback and advice.
Listening, deeply reflecting, and having candid dialogue with your mentee will help you make more
informed decisions and choices. Additional benefits include:

• Expanded knowledge and perspective

• Opportunity to broaden your personal network
• Additional insight about how to handle a particular challenge or problem solve, e.g.
recovering from a failure, influencing others, leading a group, school-life balance, etc.
• Support in identifying academic and professional goals
• Development through exploring strengths and areas of opportunity, receiving candid
feedback, and understanding different perspectives through conversing in thought-
provoking dialogue

While the CGSP team strives to have scholars intern and work at Cargill, the program goal as defined
in our program goal is to nourish future leaders. Serving as a mentor does not hold you to any type
of accountability to have your mentee find a role at Cargill.
A NOTE TO MENTORS: M ENT EE R E SPO NSIB I L I T I ES A ND GU ID EL I N
A NOTE TO MENTEES: RESPONSIBILITIES AND GUIDELINES

In the initial introduction email sent to connect mentors and mentees, you will learn the name of
your mentor and your mentor’s professional role at Cargill. Mentorship is not an optional part of the
CGSP, and as part of both the first year In-Country Seminar and second year Global Leadership
Seminar content, networking and mentorship is covered.

Mentees should:
• Ask mentor insightful questions
• Formulate preliminary academic and professional goals
• Initiate conversations with mentor (i.e. be an active participant)
• Reflect on mentor’s questions and feedback
• Respond to mentor’s communication in a timely manner
• Share information about curricular and extracurricular interests and passions

MEETING GUIDELINES

Communication:
Communication once per month at a minimum via the channel of the mentor and mentee’s
consensus. The recommended about of time to dedicate to your mentee is one hour per
month based on survey results from previous cohorts.

Goal Setting:
Work with your mentor to define and set short and long-term academic and professional goals. Activities,
discussions and learning opportunities recommended by your mentors will be aligned to best support
your development toward these goals. Your progress against goals will be discussed throughout the
mentorship.

Confidentiality and Trust:

Maintain privacy and confidentiality of conversations with your mentee. They will do the same. It is
important to discuss confidentiality and trust during your first meeting with your mentor to ensure that
you have alignment. You should speak freely about any questions or concerns that you may have. These
questions and concerns may relate to any facet of your life whether it is academic, professional, personal,
or social.

First Meeting:
During your first meeting with your mentor you will create some basic “guidelines” to help structure
your relationship. Some questions and topics to address should include:
• How frequent do I intend to communicate with my mentor and via what form(s) of
communication? Reminder: this should be at least once per month
• What are our ground rules for confidentiality, openness, feedback, etc.?
• Are there any topics that are off limits (i.e. personal life)?
• What am I looking to gain from this experience?
• How will we schedule meetings? How will we approach rescheduling meetings, if needed?

Your first few meetings should be focused on getting to know one another and building a relationship of
trust. Additional discussion topics that will help guide your first few meetings with your mentee
are outlined in the next section.

EXAMPLE MONTHLY CONVERSATION POINTS

Month Topic

July 2019 Introductions and discuss Global Leadership Seminar (July 29 – August 2 in Minneapolis)

August Academic goals for upcoming school year, classes

September Resume building

October Time management

November Professional development via extracurricular clubs and activities

December Successes and failures, greatest learnings

January 2020 Managing conflict

February Work-life balance

March Negotiating skills at work

April Navigating career transition and/or change

May Interview skills

June 2020 Applying learnings to professional career after university

Closure
A mentoring relationship is not expected to be permanent and will formally end as part of the year
two Cargill Global Scholars Program in June 2020. However, the CGSP team witnesses many
mentorship relationships last, and in the last survey administered, more than 50% of CGSP Alumni
were in contact with at least one of their mentors from the CGSP.

TIPS FOR CONNECTING VITRUALLY

• E-mail is a fast, easy and inexpensive way to communicate with your mentor
between phone or in-person meetings
• Frequency of contact is important, especially in the first few months. It will help
you move beyond small talk and show that you want to discuss a variety of
issues
• Lync, Skype, and Facetime are suggested technologies to connect with your
mentee. Please work with your mentee to determine the method that works
best for your communications
• WhatsApp and WeChat are app based platforms that allow for real-time
responses and have been popular among recent cohorts of scholars
• Show enthusiasm and share examples of your own personal learnings!

HAVING CONCERNS OR TROUBLE CONNECTING?

• Contact co-mentoring leads Maria Rieger and Lindsey Kaufmann, and alert them of the
situation. Don’t be afraid to solicit advice on how best to handle the situation
• Don’t feel obligated to answer every question raised by your mentor if you feel that the
topic area is too personal/sensitive. Tell your mentor that you do not feel comfortable
commenting on the question
• Note: Cargill and the Institute of International Education (IIE) reserve the right to examine
your program participation should you not fully engage with mentorship. As part of the
program terms, you have accepted participation in the program, and this includes
mentorship