What is the difference between a mentor and a mentee?

A mentor is the more experienced person who shares knowledge, perspective, and feedback. A mentee is the person being mentored, who sets the goals and does most of the preparation. The relationship is voluntary on both sides and usually runs for several months.

What does matching mean in a mentoring program?

Matching is the process of pairing each mentee with a suitable mentor. Programs match by hand, let mentees choose from a list, or use rules that compare profile fields such as goals, skills, and location. Good matching criteria are agreed before applications open.

What is a cohort in mentoring?

A cohort is a group of participants who start and finish a program round together. Running in cohorts makes onboarding, training, check-ins, and evaluation easier because everyone is at the same stage. Many programs run one or two cohorts a year.

What is the difference between ROI and ROE in mentoring?

ROI, return on investment, compares the money a program costs with the financial value it creates. ROE, return on expectations, asks whether the program delivered what its sponsors said they wanted at the start. Many programs report ROE because mentoring outcomes are hard to price.

Mentoring Glossary: 43 Mentoring Terms, Defined

Q: Is protégé the same as mentee?

Yes, both words describe the person who receives mentoring. Protégé is the older term and can suggest that the mentor protects or promotes the person. Most programs today use mentee because it puts the person on an equal footing with the mentor.

A mentoring glossary is a list of the terms people use when they run or take part in a mentoring program, each with a short, plain definition. This one covers 43 terms, from mentor and mentee to matching, cohorts, reverse mentoring, the Kirkpatrick model, and ROI, in alphabetical order.

Program teams use these words loosely, and the same word can mean different things in HR, at a university, and in an accelerator. Agreeing on them early saves time when you write a proposal, brief mentors, or report results. Each entry below links to a longer guide where one exists. The full library is in our mentoring guides.

Which mentoring terms are most often confused?

Five roles get mixed up more than any others. The difference is mostly about who drives the relationship and what it is for.

Term	Who helps	Main focus	Typical form
Mentoring	A more experienced volunteer	The mentee’s own goals and long-term growth	Regular conversations over several months
Coaching	A trained coach, often paid	A defined performance or behavior goal	A set number of structured sessions
Sponsorship	A senior leader with influence	Visibility, promotion, and access to opportunities	Advocacy, often outside the person’s view
Onboarding buddy	A peer in the same team or site	Settling in during the first weeks	Informal help on day-to-day questions
Peer mentoring	A colleague at a similar level	Mutual support and shared problem-solving	Pairs or small groups that take turns

How should you use this glossary?

Read it once before you design a program, then use it to keep your documents consistent:

Pick the terms your program will use, for example “mentee” or “protégé”, “session” or “meeting”, and stick to them.
Use the same words in your application form, mentoring agreement, and emails.
Rename roles only when your community already uses another word, such as “advisor” or “buddy”.
Add your own program-specific terms to the list you share with mentors in training.

A

Alumni mentoring

A program in which graduates of a school or university mentor current students or recent graduates. It is usually run by an alumni relations or careers office and focuses on careers, industries, and the move from study to work.

Application form

The form mentors and mentees complete to join a program. It collects the information used for selection and matching, such as goals, experience, skills, availability, and preferences.

C

Career mentoring

Mentoring focused on a person’s career path: choosing a direction, preparing for promotion, changing roles, or entering a new industry. It is the most common focus of workplace and alumni programs.

Check-in

A short, scheduled touchpoint between the program team and a pair, or between mentor and mentee, to confirm that meetings are happening and goals are on track. Regular check-ins catch stalled pairs early.

Closure

The planned end of a mentoring relationship or program round. A good closure includes a final conversation about progress, feedback to the program, and a clear choice about whether the pair continues informally.

Coaching

A structured development relationship, usually led by a trained and often paid coach, focused on a defined performance or behavior goal. Unlike mentoring, the coach does not need experience in the client’s field.

Cohort

A group of participants who start and finish a program round together. Running in cohorts lets the program team onboard, train, check in on, and evaluate everyone at the same stage.

E

E-mentoring

Mentoring that happens mainly online, through video calls, messaging, or a mentoring platform, also called virtual mentoring. It removes the need for mentor and mentee to be in the same city or time zone.

Employee resource group (ERG)

A voluntary, employee-led group built around a shared identity or experience, such as women, parents, or LGBTQ+ employees. Many ERGs run their own mentoring or sponsorship programs for members.

F

Flash mentoring

A single mentoring conversation, or a short series, with no long-term commitment. It suits specific questions, networking, or testing whether a longer match would work.

Formal mentoring

Mentoring organized through a structured program with defined goals, an application process, matching, a set duration, and evaluation. It is the opposite of informal mentoring.

G

Group mentoring

A format in which one mentor, or a few, meets a small group of mentees around a shared theme. It stretches scarce senior experience across more people and lets mentees learn from each other.

I

Informal mentoring

A mentoring relationship that forms naturally, without a program, matching, or fixed term. It often starts when someone asks a more experienced colleague for advice and the conversations continue.

K

Kirkpatrick model

A four-level framework for evaluating training and development programs, developed by Donald Kirkpatrick. It measures reaction, learning, behavior, and results, and many teams use it to structure mentoring evaluation.

M

Matching

The process of pairing mentees with suitable mentors. It can be done by hand by the program team, by participants choosing from a list, or by rules and algorithms that compare profiles.

Matching criteria

The factors used to decide which mentor fits which mentee, such as goals, skills, experience, department, location, language, and availability. Programs usually separate must-have criteria from nice-to-have ones.

Mentee

The person who receives mentoring. The mentee sets the goals, prepares for meetings, and follows through between them; the mentor supports that work with experience and feedback.

Mentor

A more experienced person who shares knowledge, perspective, and honest feedback to help a mentee grow. The word comes from Mentor, the friend of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey who guided his son.

Mentoring

A development relationship in which a more experienced person helps a less experienced one grow through regular conversations. It is guided by the mentee’s goals rather than a curriculum and usually lasts several months.

Mentoring agreement

A short document, signed or simply agreed, in which mentor and mentee record their goals, meeting frequency, communication channels, confidentiality rules, and how the relationship will end.

Mentoring circle

A small, ongoing group that meets regularly to discuss shared topics, usually guided by one or two mentors. Members support one another as well as learning from the mentor.

Mentoring program

A structured initiative that recruits mentors and mentees, matches them, supports their meetings for a set period, and evaluates the results. Companies, universities, accelerators, and communities all run them.

Mentoring session

A single meeting between mentor and mentee. Sessions are often structured around an agenda, such as a progress update, one main topic, and agreed next steps.

Mentoring software

An application that runs a mentoring program in one place: applications, matching, scheduling, session tracking, reminders, and reporting. It replaces spreadsheets and email once a program grows beyond a few pairs.

Mentor training

Preparation for mentors before and during a program. It typically covers the program’s goals, the mentor’s role and limits, listening and questioning skills, confidentiality, and how to handle difficult situations.

O

Onboarding buddy

A peer assigned to a new employee to help them settle in during their first weeks or months. A buddy answers practical questions and introduces people; it is lighter and shorter than mentoring.

Opt-in

A participation model in which people choose to join a program rather than being assigned to it. Most mentoring programs are opt-in, because voluntary participants tend to engage more.

P

Peer mentoring

Mentoring between people at a similar level, such as new managers, students in the same year, or members of the same team. Each person can be both mentor and mentee.

Pilot program

A small first version of a mentoring program, run with a limited group for a limited time to test the design before a wider launch. A pilot shows what to fix in matching, timing, and support.

Program coordinator

The person who runs a mentoring program day to day, also called the program administrator or manager. They recruit participants, approve matches, send reminders, answer questions, and report results.

Program evaluation

The process of measuring whether a mentoring program met its goals. It usually combines participation data, participant surveys, and outcome measures agreed with sponsors before launch.

Protégé

An older word for mentee, from the French for a protected person. It can suggest that the mentor protects or promotes the person, which is why most programs now prefer mentee.

R

Rematching

Assigning a new mentor or mentee when a match does not work, for example because of a poor fit, a schedule clash, or someone leaving. A clear, no-blame rematching process keeps participants in the program.

Return on expectations (ROE)

An evaluation approach that asks whether a program delivered the results its sponsors said they expected at the start. It is often used where outcomes are hard to express in money.

Return on investment (ROI)

A comparison between the cost of a program and the financial value it creates, often expressed as a ratio or percentage. In mentoring, value is usually estimated from outcomes such as retention or promotion.

Reverse mentoring

A format in which a more junior person mentors a more senior one, usually on topics such as technology, new working habits, or the experience of a different generation or group.

S

Single sign-on (SSO)

A login method that lets people sign in to an application with their existing organizational account, such as a company identity provider. It removes separate passwords and lets IT control access centrally.

Situational mentoring

Short-term mentoring for a specific need or moment, such as preparing for a new role, a presentation, or a negotiation. It ends when the situation is resolved.

SMART goals

Goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Many programs ask mentees to write one or two SMART goals at the start so that progress can be discussed and measured.

Speed mentoring

An event format in which mentees rotate through several short conversations with different mentors, often 10 to 15 minutes each. It is used for networking or as a way to choose a longer-term mentor.

Sponsorship

A relationship in which a senior leader uses their influence to advocate for someone, for example by recommending them for promotion or a high-profile project. Mentors advise; sponsors act on the person’s behalf.

T

Triad mentoring

A format with three participants, such as one mentor and two mentees, or a mentor, a mentee, and a second mentor with a different perspective. It adds viewpoints while keeping the group small.

W

White label

A setup in which software runs under the customer’s own brand, with its own domain, logo, colors, and email sender. Participants see the organization’s program rather than the vendor’s name.

Where to go from here

If you are building a program, start with how to start a mentoring program and how to match mentors and mentees. If you run one, Mentornity handles applications, mentor matching, scheduling, and reporting, and it is free for up to 10 users.