Unfortunately, companies often don’t have anyone with the time to properly mentor an entry-level developer or intern.

If your organization is starting or revamping a mentorship program, the following tips from TechRepublic Premium can help. But it’s important to note that not every senior developer makes a good mentor, and there’s no shame in knowing your limitations. If you don’t think you can fully commit to being a good mentor, or you don’t think you have the necessary skills or traits to be one, say something. It’s better to admit you aren’t cut out for the task than to force yourself to do it and waste time and probably alienate a promising new employee.

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4: Assign appropriate projects

One of the worst things you can do is throw entry-level programmers at an extremely complex project, forcing them to sink or swim. Chances are, they’ll sink. Even worse, they’ll add this project to their resume/CV and run out of there as fast as they can just to get away from you. On the other hand, don’t create busy work for them. Let them work on nagging issues in current products or internal projects you never seem to have time to address. Once you gain confidence about what they can accomplish, you can assign a more difficult project.

Enhance your mentoring with our five-page PDF guide. This is available to download for FREE. Get access to more content with a Premium annual subscription. Click here to find out the details. Use the code 25off-trp to get a 25% discount.

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