Topmate sessions !!

What are your views in products like topmate, mentorly etc. See a number of people putting links for 1:1 consultation through topmate where mentor gets paid for thier 'knowledge'. Has anyone signed up as a mentor or taken anything through so these mentors.

Which one matters: Skills or Experience? Experience, and further the insights comes with multiple 'years of experience' only. On the other hand, 'skills' can be learnt. Who would you give preference to? I've been naive enough to think that what people with 10-20+ yoe is something that I can easily do. But nope, decision making is a completely different ball game. I got this thought when I came across youngsters charging money for 'mentorship' (PS: one off sessions, especially paid, is not how mentor-mentee relationship works). If folks without proper experience is mentoring, what exactly are they sharing? How to get to where they are? What would it take for anyone to get somewhere further ahead (where they themselves haven't been)? Just some 'skills' that mentees should get upskilled on? Skills are required, but so is experience as well. As they say, it's not the tool but you use it that makes the difference! So yes, what exactly are these young 'top mentors' talking about (or preching)? Nuances: yes, one can talk about everything that they have gone through up until then. But in this case, everything would be short term and not really helpful. One off sessions may work if it's just a Q&A or an AMA session. But that's not mentorship. Yes, time is money, and it's fine to charge for it. But is it really that they're valuing their time more, or the money? I have no hate against platforms like Topmate. As a platform, they're good. It's just how we make use of it that is not great. [I do mentor people. I just mentor 3-4 people, and has been doing that since 3-4 years). I have a few mentors as well. That has been going on since last 6+ years. None of those are paid. It's mutual respect and truly supporting others in their journey. I occasionally do the 'AMA or Q&A sessions + resume review as well'. Again free, but not under the disguise of 'mentorship'

Spoke to few people who have their Topmate link. On an average after speaking to them i found that they are in their positions just by luck. Asked for resume review, ek se ek expert 😂

been getting insanely annoyed with people (with barely any experience) opening up topmate pages and charging college students for interviews, texts, cv reviews and calls. have even seem some undergraduates who have only done one summer sde intern and opening up topmate pages idk if it's just me but i don't think it's a good idea to charge money to college kids who are just trying to get some advice. in some cases I've seen people charging money even from their own juniors ( same college) just because 5 people texted you on LinkedIn doesn't make you a king/queen, please quit the narcissism, it reeks of your need of validation from vulnerable and desperate juniors

I've been seeing a lot of people promoting their services on Topmate or similar platform, and charging some random amount for the same. So, I just wanted to share my small experience - nothing fancy though. Occasionally people looking for better tech jobs (early career) reach out to me, blocks my calendar and we have conversation for 30-60 minutes, absolutely at zero cost. Often times, they come back after a few months to share about their updates or to share the happy news. I'm not on Topmate, nor have I shared this publicly with anyone. People occasionally reach out, 1-2 per month (now), purely by word of mouth 💁🏻‍♂️ I haven't gyaan-ed on LinkedIn nor am I interested in the same. I don't understand why people shares a ton of posts regarding the same. I don't know whether they're doing it just for the name/fame. I often review resume of those who reach out to me, and used to review almost 20+ resumes every month. I still do it occasionally. This is again not via Topmate or any other platform, they block time on my calendar and then we do it, absolutely for free. Over call, we would be spending 60-90 minutes or more for the resume. I go through each and every word on their resume, rephrases it and improve it. I help them in presenting a compelling story about themselves. Again, this is also for free. And almost all of them has received a lot of interviews from most of the Big tech companies. (Main point is not because I helped them, they were able to showcase themselves in the best way). I don't have a lot of experience. But over the last 3 years, I've been extensively researching on these things, and has been supporting a lot of folks. It is very tiring, and sometimes I really don't want to continue doing it as well, especially since I don't charge a dime. But yes, when we help someone, happiness automatically comes to us. I just wanted to share this with you all.

I see so many LinkedIn Tech influencers selling mentorships on topmate. While this is certainly not wrong. But some are charging 6k for 30 min or so, which is insane. Usually people under 2 years of exp are falling for this. Funny thing is it's people under 2 years of exp, who just cracked a Faang are providing mentorships on topmate

So, just to be clear, I have no grudges against the people, but basically I don't like the core idea of doing a paid "guidance or mentorship" session. Examples being career guidance or famous resume reviews on Topmate See, The very basic idea of asking for guidance is that you are in a vulnerable state and someone 'helps' you out by sharing their experience & giving back to the community in that way. This entire concept is thrown away when you Charge Money for it, it's no longer a help relationship - I can understand people are busy and have less time for mentorship, but that doesn't justify charging for it There is another tangible problem in my opinion. When you Charge for a guidance session, it gives a transactional outlook for you - As in you never want to go really deep into conversations because it's a paid one time thing and as soon as your 30 minutes is gone, you have earned your prize. I know it's difficult to describe in words but when you do something for 1-time money, it's very difficult to not have a purely transactional perspective to it . This is something I have personally observed when I used to be in a competitive activity & did paid mentorship Sessions. There is also a 3rd issue of inexperienced people giving out paid gyaan on issues which they don't have an idea of (I saw someone looking for their first full time job and yet running paid "career guidance" session on Topmate) but lets keep that for another day ps : This is not against People whose job is advisory, that's a much more formal relationship by nature & there are enough checks and balances.