Q: Why do most mentorship experiences fail to meet your expectations?

A: Because the existing mentorship model is broken.

And I am not the only one to recognize its flaws. In the words of Charlie O’Donnell, entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, “Structures for industry specific learning, particularly when it comes from learning from the accumulated wisdom of successful and experienced professionals, is horribly inefficient.”

TAG is my attempt at building a new structure to make experiential learning more efficient. TAG is my attempt at fixing the traditional – and broken – mentorship model. Let me explain…

A year ago, as I was researching the idea of TAG, I spoke to a number of students that used university career centers and alumni offices to find willing professionals / mentors. These students went through an application process, were selected to participate, and were given a “great” mentor in their chosen career field. That’s when the problems began…

1. The match: some students wanted to be mentored by an investment banker and were given a private wealth management professional. This flawed matching process ensured a swift end to the students’ mentorship experience.
2. The structure: most students – and their mentors / professionals – never truly understood how to properly cultivate their relationship. The lack of learning structure ensured very little knowledge transfer and led to a fairly rapid deterioration in their relationship.
3. The system: there was no reporting, no accountability and – almost as important – no incentives to sustain the relationship. Without such engagement, the long-term fate of each relationship was sealed: FAILURE WAS VIRTUALLY ASSURED.

If you ask most students to describe their university mentorship experience, you will begin to notice a consistent trend: most think that their mentorship program was a giant waste of time. One student went so far as to say, “Because of my poor experience with [school withheld]‘s mentorship program, I will never donate a dime to my alma mater.” Those are powerful words that lead to a powerful conclusion: traditional mentorship is broken.

The structural flaws I mentioned above are patently obvious in 99% of today’s mentorship programs. So why do they persist?

Because no one has put a business model around mentorship. No one, that is, until TAG.

At TAG, we’re turning the archaic idea of mentorship upside down. We’re doing this because we believe the current mentorship model is in a state of disrepair. We’re doing this because we want to bridge the gap between students and the working world. We’re doing this because we want to help students fulfill their career dreams.

P.S. If you work in in the career services office or in alumni relations (wherever your schools’ mentorship program is housed) and want to unlock the huge potential of your alumni network and resoundingly answer the ROI problem for your university, please give me a call at 888.946.8566.