Mastering Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet

They spend the first session on the connection and treat that as the session, rather than losing the content session to it.

Before the first meeting, check three things about whichever platform your service uses, because they differ and they change: whether she can join from a phone browser without installing anything, whether she can join without creating an account, and whether there is a dial-in number that works if the internet fails. Have the answers ready rather than discovering them live.

Then send an invitation a person can act on. One link, the time with the time zone spelled out, what to press, and a fallback number and a promise that you will call if she does not appear within five minutes. Not a calendar attachment that opens into an app she does not use.

Data cost is the one people forget. Video eats mobile data, and a mentee on a limited plan may be choosing between the session and the rest of her month. Say at the start that audio only is completely fine and mean it. A conversation without video is a conversation. A conversation that stops on day eighteen because the data ran out is not.

Audio only would solve half of my problems. Is there a downside I am not thinking about?

The main one is that you lose the small visual signals, so you have to ask more directly instead of reading a face, and you should say so rather than guessing. Longer pauses and plainer check-in questions cover most of it.

Two things to add that the first reply left out. If you ever record a session, ask before you start recording and be specific about who will hear it and how long it is kept; a recording of a mentoring conversation is a personal data record and consent given by silence is not consent. And turn on live captions where the platform has them: they help anyone following a second language, and they help even more when the connection is poor.

Everything above assumes one to one. Group sessions change the calculation and mostly in one direction: everyone can see everyone, the participant list is a list of who is taking part, and a name shown on screen may be more than someone wants to give.

For a group, agree the display names in advance, tell people they can appear as audio only without explaining, and never record. If a group has any chance of touching on personal circumstances, run it with a smaller number of people than feels efficient.