Matching is at the heart of your program, as it's where you can match mentors and mentees. Smart Matching helps you create compatible connections for your members, provided easy access to personalized mentorship!
By default, Matching is enabled for every program.
What types of matching does Mentorly offer?
Mentorly generates compatibility scores between mentors and mentees based on their answers to Matching questions.When designing their program, Program Managers can choose between two types of Matching:
Manual Matching allows for the Program Manager to create matches one at a time. Although labor-intensive, this is great for a smaller program where the Program Manager is very familiar with each participant.
Advanced Matching allows you to filter and segment your pool of participants, and adjust algorithm weights, to find the best mentor-mentee pairs. It will automatically generate several matches at once with the click of a button by pairing up mentors and mentees with the highest compatibility scores.
Before inviting members to your program, be sure to review the Matching Questions, as they provide the data that feeds Mentorly's Matching algorithm.
⭐ Pro and Enterprise subscriptions include Matching questionnaire customization. Teams subscriptions include the ability to remove questions or modify possible answers. Please reach out to Mentorly Support for any modifications.
Ready, Set, Match!
When you're ready to start matching members of your program, head on over to the Matching section in your Program Dashboard. For best results, we strongly recommend you start matching when the majority of your Mentors and Mentees are onboarded, as this means they will have completed their profile and Matching questions.
You can check on the status of your members by verifying the User Progress chart on the Home tab.
For easy viewing, you can sort the first column by either Mentors or Mentees, and the second column is where you can create matches or view current ones.
Creating Matches
To manually create a Match, select the Mentor or Mentee that you'd like to create a match for and click on 'add mentee/mentor'.
You can choose from a list of the top suggestions based on compatibility, or search for a specific user. Once selected, hit "Draft 1 Match". When you're ready to activate, simply press the activate button in the purple banner at the top.
Note: If you have set a program-wide Mentor Capacity limit, or if a Mentor has set their own Capacity, it will appear next to their name. If a Mentor is at capacity, you won't be able to create any additional drafts or matches for them.
To automatically generate multiple Matches based on compatibility scores or population Segment, click on Advanced Matching in the top right corner of the Matching page.
To run Matching for your entire Mentee and Mentor pools, all you need to do is select the number of matches allowed per mentor/mentee.
Clicking on Preview Matches (Dry run) will give you a glimpse of what the Matches will be. If you are satisfied with the preview, you can Draft all Matches.
If you are running a program that includes different populations with unique needs, Mentorly makes it easy to run Matching on subsets of your participants with Segments.
Note: Make sure to create and customize Mentorly Segments before inviting users to make Advanced Matching possible.
Clicking on Preview Matches (Dry run) will give you a glimpse of what the Matches will be. If you are satisfied with the preview, you can Draft all Matches.
Once complete, the Matching page will automatically refresh and you will see all Drafted Matches that you can choose to activate whenever you're ready. You have the option to activate Matches in bulk or individually.
All drafts are indicated by a pencil icon in place of the user's profile picture.
Activating a Match triggers a notification email for both the Mentor and Mentee, introducing them and giving them access to each other's profile.
An active Match (Mentor & Mentee) is able to communicate via Mentorly Messaging, and Mentees can book mentoring sessions with their Mentor.
Want to review a mentor's or mentee's answers to the Matching questions to know more about their compatibility? Click on the Info icon next to their compatibility score.
Removing matches
At any point in the program, you can deactivate a Match.
To do so, just click on the row of the selected Mentor/Mentee that you want to deactivate Matches for and the list of their Matches will appear.
Select the Matches to delete by clicking on the minus sign - you can select more than one - then click delete match(es) in the upper right corner.
When a Match is deleted, it will no longer appear in the Mentor and Mentee's Matches tab. Program Manager will still be able to see deactivated Matches and they will be identified by a Stop sign (replacing the profile picture). Check the Last Updated column to see the Start and End date of every Match.
A mentor/mentee's perspective
Participants will have a Matches tab in their Personal Dashboard, and they will have access to the Matching questions during the onboarding process.
For more information on the Mentor or Mentee's experience, check out this article that outlines each step on how to explore their Matches.