Forester Micro-Mentorship Program

Students and recent graduates can help your organization through micro-mentorships by providing support for professional tasks much like traditional interns, but without the commitment of a semester-long experience. They are also a low-risk way for your organization to get exposure to a diverse pool of potential hires.

The Forester Micro-Mentorship Program is designed for you to provide both mentorship, sharing insight regarding your profession and job search advice, as well as a virtual/remote micro-internship project (approximately 20% mentorship and 80% micro-internship experience).

These micro-mentorships typically range from 20 to 50 hours for a duration of two to six weeks. Unlike traditional internships, micro-mentorships will be funded by generous donors to the College, who annually support internship funding. Upon successful project completion, students will receive stipends of $300 for 20-30 hours and $500 for 40-50 hours. Stipends will be based on the estimated hours of the project that is provided in the job description.

A limited number of micro-mentorships are available for each term that they are offered.

Sample micro-mentorship projects:

• Creating a social media calendar for your organization
• Cleaning and organizing data
• Conducting a SWOT or other analysis on your organization’s products or services
• Generating sales leads
• Researching new processes or software to support your operations
• Assisting with grant writing and scientific writing projects 
• Collecting survey or qualitative data and organizing datasets for analyses 
• Provide research support in developing curatorial projects or exhibitions
• Contributing to fundraising efforts that include event planning, social media posting, and donor prospect research

Micro-mentorships are an opportunity to help a Forester.

As a micro-mentor you will:

• Interview candidates and select individuals that are the best fit for the project-based work and mentorship.
• Engage students as they assist with a project, giving meaningful feedback, and development as a professional. 
• Allow students to tap into your existing knowledge of industry experience as they progress in their career search.

Micro-mentorships are beneficial for both students and your organization.

Micro-mentorships will provide your organization with:

• A completed short-term project or ‘deliverable’
• An opportunity to mentor, lead, motivate, and teach students about careers as well as the internship and job search process
• Generated interest in a particular industry among future generations of employees
• The development of a potential pipeline of candidates from qualified applicants
• Marketing and name recognition in the community as well as at Lake Forest College
• An opportunity to collect new perspectives and ideas from students regarding processes, organizational branding, technology, new trends, and more

Micro-mentorships help students:

• Gain skills and experience that will be helpful for entry-level positions
• Explore career paths and get exposure to organizations and industries
• Develop their network
• Participate in an internship they otherwise may not have been able to due to course schedules, prohibitive costs, housing, and other factors 

Interested in the Micro-Mentorship Program?

Read more on our Program Details page.

To get started with the micro-mentorship process, please fill out our Micro-Mentorship Proposal Form or contact the Career Advancement Center at careers@lakeforest.edu. 

Micro-mentorships will be reviewed for approval based on project content, applicability to student skillsets, mentorship capacity, and funding availability.

Questions? Contact us at careers@lakeforest.edu or call us at (847)735-5235.