Following the practices of your school, help your postdoc identify a minimum of two additional faculty members or professionals to serve as members of his or her mentoring team.
- Faculty members or professionals outside the university may serve on mentoring teams.
- These individuals should be accessible to your postdoc and knowledgeable of his or her research and career interests.
- Your postdoc may be able to recommend individuals to serve on his or her mentoring team. In some cases, a school may assign faculty representatives to serve this role for the school’s postdoc community.
- For postdocs interested in careers outside of academia, mentoring teams may include professionals from the private or public sectors.
Help your postdoc establish initial contact and encourage your postdoc to develop relationships with the members of his or her mentoring team. Members of a postdoc’s mentoring team are to be identified on the postdoc’s Career Development Plan and may change during the course of your postdoc’s training.
Solicit regular feedback from mentoring team members with regard to your postdoc’s scientific and professional maturation. Their input should be taken into consideration when you complete your postdoc's annual Postdoctoral Progress Assessment. Ask mentoring team members about the degree of initiative your postdoc has demonstrated with regard to developing a relationship with him or her, observations with regard to your postdoc’s effort in seeking out additional resources to support his or her career development, as well as feedback with regard to your postdoc’s scientific and professional skills.