How Digital Nova Scotia built mentoring into an intensive tech training program with Mentorly
Mentorly is the mentoring platform Digital Nova Scotia uses to connect learners in its Skills for Hire Atlantic program with mentors from the Atlantic Canada tech sector. It is software for organizations that run mentoring inside training, workforce and education programs.
About the organization
Digital Nova Scotia runs Skills for Hire Atlantic, a training program in cybersecurity and data analytics for learners across four Atlantic provinces. Its Cohort 6 alone had over 450 learners, and more than 40% of them identified as immigrants building a career in a new country.
The challenge
Learners were already juggling technical courses, live and self-paced instruction, career workshops and industry panels. Digital Nova Scotia needed mentoring that fit those schedules and stayed personal for a large cohort, instead of occasional one-off conversations.
How it uses Mentorly
Mentorly takes on the administrative work: automated scheduling, session reminders and post-meeting evaluations. When analytics showed a mid-program dip in mentee participation, the team used real-time data to target its outreach and raised engagement in the later weeks of the program. Usage reports helped refine mentor recruitment, so mentor expertise matched mentee goals in specialized fields.
Results
In the most recent cohort, 41 mentors held structured sessions with 160 mentees over three months, and the program received more than 250 mentorship requests. Of the mentees, 91% found Mentorly easy to use and would recommend it, and mentorship participation rose by over 25% compared with earlier cohorts. Program manager Amin Zribi reports increased participation, stronger retention and high satisfaction, especially among students juggling several parts of the program.
What other programs can take from it
For a training or workforce program, the lesson is to let the platform handle reminders and evaluations, and to watch participation as the program runs so the team can act before mentees drift away.
Questions
How does Digital Nova Scotia use Mentorly?
Digital Nova Scotia uses Mentorly to give learners in Skills for Hire Atlantic mentors from the regional tech sector, with scheduling, reminders and evaluations handled by the platform.
Can a mentoring platform work inside a busy training program?
Yes. In Skills for Hire Atlantic, learners took part in mentoring on Mentorly alongside an intensive curriculum, and mentorship participation rose compared with earlier cohorts.