Should a mentorship program require an application?

Require one whenever mentee demand exceeds mentor supply, which is almost always. An application is not a barrier for its own sake: it produces the goal statement you need for matching, and the act of writing one filters out people who signed up on impulse and would have lapsed by month two.

What should a mentee application form ask?

Four things: what the person wants to change, what is currently in the way, what they can commit to in hours per month, and whether their manager knows they are applying. Everything else is optional and should be cut if completion rate is a concern.

Should managers approve mentee applications?

Awareness yes, approval usually no. Requiring manager sign-off gives a blocking manager a veto over someone's development and quietly filters out the people in the worst situations, who often need the program most. Ask applicants to confirm their manager is aware and leave it there.

How do you choose between mentee applicants?

Score against stated criteria and publish the criteria before applications open. Weight clarity of goal, whether the goal is something mentoring can actually move, and stated capacity. Do not weight tenure or performance rating unless the program was explicitly scoped to a talent segment.

Mentee Application Form Template (Free, 2026)

Before you send this

Publish your selection criteria at the same time you open applications. Applicants who know how decisions are made complain less about the outcome, and criteria written after the fact never look fair no matter how fair they were.

Keep this form under six minutes. Every extra minute costs you applicants from exactly the population most likely to be time-poor.

Application form

About you

Full name: [FREE TEXT]
Job title: [FREE TEXT]
Department or function: [DROPDOWN]
Manager's name: [FREE TEXT]
Time at [COMPANY]: [DROPDOWN: Under 6 months / 6 to 12 months / 1 to 2 years / 2 to 5 years / 5 years or more]

What you want

In one or two sentences, what do you want to be different in 12 months? [FREE TEXT, 300 CHARACTER LIMIT]

The character limit is deliberate. A goal that cannot be stated in two sentences is usually several goals, and a pair that starts with several goals finishes none of them.
Which of these is closest to your goal? [SINGLE SELECT]
- Get promoted to the next level
- Move into people management
- Change function or discipline
- Build a specific technical or commercial skill
- Grow my internal network beyond my own team
- Navigate a specific situation I am facing now
- Something else: [FREE TEXT]
What is currently in the way? [FREE TEXT, 500 CHARACTER LIMIT]

This is the most useful field on the form. It tells you whether mentoring is the right intervention at all. "I do not know how promotion decisions get made here" is a mentoring problem. "My team is under-resourced by two people" is not, and routing that person to a mentor wastes both their time.
What have you already tried? [FREE TEXT, OPTIONAL]

What you can commit

How many hours per month can you commit to this? [SINGLE SELECT: 1 to 2 / 3 to 4 / 5 or more]
What meeting cadence works for you? [SINGLE SELECT: Weekly / Every two weeks / Monthly]
Do you have any planned absence in the next six months that would interrupt a mentoring relationship? [FREE TEXT, OPTIONAL]

Manager awareness

Is your manager aware you are applying? [YES / NOT YET]

If not yet, that is fine. We ask because mentoring works better when your manager knows it is happening and can protect the time. We will not contact them without telling you first.

Note for program managers: keep this as awareness, not approval. Requiring sign-off hands a veto to exactly the managers whose reports most need an outside perspective.

Matching preferences

Would you prefer a mentor inside your own function or outside it? [SINGLE SELECT: Inside / Outside / No preference]
Is there anything a potential mentor should know about how you like to work? [FREE TEXT, OPTIONAL]

Commitment

I understand that if I am matched, I am committing to the cadence I selected for the full program cycle. [REQUIRED CHECKBOX]
I understand that places are limited by mentor supply and that applying does not guarantee a place. [REQUIRED CHECKBOX]

Selection criteria to publish alongside the form

Adapt and publish these before applications open:

Criterion	Weight	What a strong answer looks like
Clarity of goal (Q6)	High	Specific, time-bound, and about the applicant rather than about others
Mentorability of the goal (Q8)	High	The obstacle is knowledge, access, or confidence, not headcount or budget
Stated capacity (Q10, Q11)	Medium	Capacity matches the cadence the program runs at
Prior effort (Q9)	Low	Evidence of self-directed attempts, but a blank answer is not disqualifying

Deliberately not weighted: tenure, performance rating, and seniority, unless your program was explicitly scoped to a talent segment and you said so up front.

After selection

Successful applicants go into matching. The answers to questions 6, 7, and 8 feed straight into the mentor matching questionnaire data set, so do not ask for them twice.

Unsuccessful applicants deserve more than a rejection line. Tell them the constraint was mentor supply rather than their application, tell them when the next cycle opens, and point them at the mentorship goal setting worksheet so the thinking they did on this form is not wasted.

Mentee Application Form Template