Mentor Recommendations in Talent Management (TM) facilitate connecting employees with potential mentors within their organization. This feature aims to help people develop, connect, and share knowledge. It's similar to the learning, career, and project recommendation systems.

How it works

Eightfold uses a data-driven, AI-powered approach to generate mentor recommendations based on comprehensive employee and organizational data.

Influencing factors and data signals

Recommendations consider various signals from employee profiles and organizational context, prioritized into tiers. The system doesn't use personally identifiable information (PII), ethnicity, or gender-related signals.

• Tier 1 signals (highest precedence):
  
  • Skills: The mentee's explicitly marked skill interests, skills identified as gaps from their current role or desired future roles, and overall skills from recent work experience
  • Role and Seniority: Current role, desired role title similarity (based on advanced title clustering), and a seniority level that's one level above the mentee
  • Location: Same city or nearby cities, often based on office location or home office for remote employees. This also includes the combination of work location and business unit/function
• Tier 2 signals:
  
  • Skills from Current Role: Skills the mentee already has that are desired for their current role
  • Seniority Level: Mentors with a seniority level up to two levels for the mentee are recommended
  • Years of Experience: Mentors with more years of experience than the mentee
  • Broader Location: Country and time zone
  • Languages
• Tier 3 signals:
  
  • General Location: Country or time zone
  • Education: Schools attended

• User preferences and administrative configuration:
  

• Opt-in Status: Employees can explicitly mark themselves as "open to mentoring" or indicate a desire for mentorship, which influences visibility
• User Filters: Mentees can refine matches using filters such as business unit, job function, skill, or location
• Access Controls: Organizations can configure rules to ensure only eligible employees participate

Matching Process

The algorithm evaluates comprehensive employee metadata, including profile skills, stated interests, and a history of role changes or upskilling plans. Matching is largely driven by overlapping skills and relevant experience. For career path integration, the system also identifies mentors who have previously transitioned into or currently hold the mentee's target role. While higher-priority signals are weighted more heavily, the collective weight of lower-priority signals can sometimes elevate a recommendation.

Note: Eightfold generally doesn’t recommend assigning an employee’s manager as their mentor.

Recommendation presentation and updates

The system presents a list of recommended mentors, prioritizing those with the highest skill alignment, relevant transition experiences, or those explicitly open for mentoring. Employees can send connection requests, view profiles, and select mentors.

Mentor pools, recommendations, and match quality update dynamically as employees adjust their profiles, as more people opt in for mentoring, or as the organization's role structures evolve.

Key benefits

Mentorships offer several key advantages:

• Targeted development: Connects employees with guidance aligned to their specific development goals and learning interests.
• Networking: Facilitates peer learning and knowledge sharing within the organization.
• Internal mobility support: Provides relevant guidance from individuals who have achieved or are in target roles.
• Maximized internal talent development: Leverages existing expertise to foster growth and engagement.