Research to Action

The Global Guide to Research Impact

Navigation

  • Home

  • How To ▾

    This list of how to’s provides an essential guide for a number of key communication and engagement activities that will help make your research travel.

    • Building Capacity
    • Policy Briefs
    • Research Impact
    • Theory of Change
    • Uptake Strategy
  • Topics ▾

    • Eye on 2022
    • Impact Practitioners ▸
      • Impact Practitioners
    • Knowing your audience ▸
      • Building a strategy
      • Engaging policy audiences ▸
        • EBPDN
        • Targeting policy actors
        • Targeting practitioners
      • Stakeholder mapping
      • Strategic communication ▸
        • Building a brand
        • Engaging the public
      • Working with the media
    • Making your research accessible ▸
      • Framing challenges
      • Knowledge translation
      • Learning in context
      • Open access
      • Presenting your research
      • Using digital tools ▸
        • Using multi media
        • Using online tools/ICTs
        • Using social media
      • Using intermediaries
    • Monitoring and evaluation ▸
      • Applying M&E methods
      • Evidence into policy
      • Measuring success
    • Uncategorized
  • Dialogue Spaces ▾

    • GDN: Doing Research
    • Manchester Policy Week 2015
    • TTI Exchange 2015
    • Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability (GDN PEM Project)
    • DFID/AusAid Research Communication and Uptake Workshop
    • 3ie Policy Influence and Monitoring (PIM) project
    • Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) Programme
  • Reading Lists

  • Impact Practitioners

    • Impact Practitioners overview
    • Capacity Building
    • Communication and Engagement
    • Frameworks
    • Indicators
    • Learning
    • Monitoring and Evaluation
    • Policy Impact
    • Strategy
    • Theoretical
    • Utilisation

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Vimeo

Featured

Top tips for being a successful mentee

By Gifti Nadi 16/10/2014

A mentor can help an aspiring professional understand current trends in a particular field. They can provide wisdom and insight on developing and testing approaches in career planning and professional development, help you understand and navigate workplace politics, expand your network,  challenge your thinking and share experiences about work life balance. Everyone can benefit from mentorship no matter how old or experienced.

Soon after I graduated from college, I started my first internship at an international development association, the Society for International Development (SID).  At SID, I developed my focus on development issues in Africa and interacted with various professionals working on various aspects of International Affairs. Over the last 15 years, a handful of these contacts became my mentors. Today, they continue to play a significant role in my professional life.

For most of my mentors, the relationship developed naturally.  I admired their values and accomplishments. I was articulate about wanting to learn from them. They were willing to give me time. We clicked and the rest is history… Well, not always. The reality is I had to first and foremost take responsibility for my career and define ways to develop and cultivate and nurture this critical relationship.

 Below are my top tips for being a successful mentee:

1. Immerse yourself in your field of interest – By staying up to date with key policy issues, you can analyze the dynamics of your country’s policy and research circles. Sign up for key events, listservs and related publications.

2. Go where you can find good mentors – They can be found at your current organization or at the institution you would like to end up at. Join a reputable Association and volunteer your services.  For example, the Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA) boasts a large membership of more than 4500 members who can provide valuable knowledge and advice.

3. Be open about your potential mentor – Your mentor does not need to be your friend and come from your background. Is she known for encouraging and aspiring younger professionals? Is he a senior, more reserved high profile professional? You may be tempted to impress him but be smart about your approach. You may have already done amazing things in your career but in some cultures, bragging about one’s accomplishments is looked down upon.

4. Define the relationship – Once you have found your potential mentor, clearly articulate what you are looking for in this mentorship and for how long. This provides your mentor an opportunity to let you know what they can in turn offer. Building trust and respect takes time. Focus on the relationship instead of short-term gains (i.e. finding a job).

5. Prepare for each interaction –Show that you are efficient and professional. Define how much time you need, get to your meeting on time and prepare an agenda with specific questions and possible solutions. This shows you are serious about your work.

6. Listen intently – Sometimes we can be set in our own ways and not pay attention to what’s being said. Note a key takeaway from every conversation.Prepare to receive feedback on what seems to work and what does not. Take out the personal and you will learn the most from constructive criticism.

7. Be honest – It’s easy to get in the habit of trying to please your mentor. After all you want to be like them so why not tell them what they want to hear. Be honest about who you are, your professional and personal aspirations and where you are in your journey and what you are experiencing. Your mentor will respect that.

8. Learn about your mentor – How did she get to this stage in her career? Is there a time where he thought there was no way out of a situation, how did they get out of it? Who inspires them? Mentors love to be asked this question because it shows that you are curious and ready to learn. At the same time, remember that while this person may have a lot of wisdom and experience in certain areas, they also do not have all the answers.

9. Follow up/Stay in touch – Mentors are taking time to meet with you and impart their knowledge. Follow up with a thank-you note after each meeting/interaction or letter of recommendation for a job or school. Keep your mentor abreast of key developments in your career.

10. Evaluate and Handle with care – Some mentors are for a season. You will know when it’s time to move on. This relationship is based on free will. Don’t force it. Taking the advice is a recommendation and not a requirement. Handle this relationship with care and wisdom.

11. Be patient – Is your relationship with your mentor not working out? Be patient and if it’s time to move on, remember that there are still good mentors are out there. Prepare yourself to drive your own development and remain open. Before you know it, you will find them or they will find you.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

This post has been produced as part of the Think Tank Initiative’s Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) programme. However, these are the author’s personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of TTI. You can find all ongoing outputs related to this project via the PEC mini-site on Research to Action. To get updates from the PEC programme and be part of the discussion sign-up to our RSS or email updates. You can also follow our progress via Twitter using the following hashtag #ttipec.

Image courtesy of Ding Marketing Studio

Related posts

EBPDN: Refreshing recommended resources - 31/10/2019
Building momentum to advance citizen evidence in policymaking - 03/09/2019
Bringing researchers and knowledge brokers together for greater impact - 29/05/2019

Get 'New Post' e-alerts and follow R2A

> > > > >

Contribute to R2A:
We welcome blogposts, news about jobs, events or funding, and recommendations for great resources about development communications and research uptake.

Topics: #ttipec, development communication, mentoring, society for international development

Gifti Nadi

Over the last decade, Gifti Nadi has worked on a number of capacity building initiatives on various development issues. Most recently, Gifti has served as a strategic communications mentor to the Ethiopian Development Research Institute and Ethiopian Economics Association as part of the Think Tank Initiative's Policy Engagement and Communications program. She has worked to enhance the media's capacity in more than 28 countries in Africa. As the Media Specialist for UNDP's Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP) in Nairobi, she facilitated media coverage analysis and various programmatic aspects of the climate change training program for over 400 journalists in 20 countries in Africa. Previously, as the Senior Program Officer for Africa at the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), she implemented multi-million dollar media which provided technical and leadership training for than 1000 journalists in Africa on gender, health and rural development reporting. Gifti has also worked on a number of advocacy programs with rural women leaders in West Africa as well as the National Summit on Africa, an initiative to educate and engage Americans about US Foreign Policy on Africa. In 2003, she received the second Truman Award for Leadership and Innovation by Young Professionals in International Development by the Society for International Development. Nadi holds a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Maryland. She is fluent in English, French and Amharic.

Contribute Write a blog post, post a job or event, recommend a resource

Partner with Us Are you an institution looking to increase your impact?

Tweets by @Research2Action

Most Recent Posts

  • Visual storytelling: The Pudding
  • Study In Germany: 2023 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Scholarship Programme for Developing Countries
  •  How to develop input, activity, output, outcome and impact indicators 
  • Free webinar: Beyond content delivery: How to make online learning truly participatory
  • UNV Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) Officer, UNICEF: Ethiopia – Deadline 29 March

This Week's Most Read

  • How to write actionable policy recommendations
  • Policymaker, policy maker, or policy-maker?
  • What do we mean by ‘impact’?
  • Outcome Mapping: A Basic Introduction
  • Gap analysis for literature reviews and advancing useful knowledge
  • Top tips: Writing newspaper opinion pieces
  • 12ft Ladder: Making research accessible
  •  How to develop input, activity, output, outcome and impact indicators 
  • Stakeholder Analysis: A basic introduction
  • Stakeholder Engagement a Tool to Measure Public Policy

About Us

Research To Action (R2A) is a learning platform for anyone interested in maximising the impact of research and capturing evidence of impact.

The site publishes practical resources on a range of topics including research uptake, communications, policy influence and monitoring and evaluation. It captures the experiences of practitioners and researchers working on these topics and facilitates conversations between this global community through a range of social media platforms.

R2A is produced by a small editorial team, led by CommsConsult. We welcome suggestions for and contributions to the site.

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Cookies
  • Contribute

Subscribe to our newsletter!

Our contributors

  • Paula Fray
  • Shubha Jayaram
  • Sue Martin
  • Maria Balarin
  • James Harvey
  • Emily Hayter
  • Susan Koshy
  • Ronald Munatsi
  • Ajoy Datta

Browse all authors

Friends and partners

  • AuthorAid
  • Global Development Network (GDN)
  • INASP
  • Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
  • International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)
  • ODI RAPID
  • On Think Tanks
  • Politics & Ideas
  • Research for Development (R4D)
  • Research Impact

Copyright © 2023 Research to Action. All rights reserved. Log in