Once you have a great experience, you will be able to match it with projects.
Whether you initiate the match request to a project, or an employer sends you a match request to your experience, a critical part of matching will be communicating with the employer to go over the details of their project and the details of your experience to ensure they are aligned and that all expectations are properly set.
Here are the best ways you can ensure a match between your experience and a project is successful and set up for the success of both your learners and the company's objectives.
Best practices
Before sending or responding
Before responding to a match request you have received, or before sending one to a project, make sure you:
Read the project. Make sure you fully understand the details of the project including size, difficulty, skills, problems, goals, and deliverables.
Determine if your project is a good fit. Based on your experience and the project description, will the project fit your timeline, learner level and skills, and learning objectives? If it doesn't quite fit the mold, think about ways the project could be slightly modified such as its scope, deliverables, or overall objectives to better fit your experience. Employers are often flexible when it comes to scope or deliverables.
What if the project isn't a good match and cannot be modified to make it so?
When an employer expresses interest in collaborating with you, it's important to acknowledge their match request with gratitude. However, in some cases, the project may not align with your needs. If this is the case, it is essential to decline the match promptly. Use the available expiry window to make a decision and provide a courteous note to the employer. Be honest and transparent, stating that the project doesn't align with your current objectives. This gesture of respect will help maintain a positive relationship, leaving the door open for future opportunities.
Write down questions ahead of time. After you read the project description, come up with a list of your own questions which will help clarify any expectations or details you would like to know. Examples include:
Can the employer able to meet any of your additional criteria or commitments?
What resources will learners need to get started?
What quality of work output is the employer expecting?
Who will be my main point of contact from an administration point of view if learners run into problems?
What is the availability of the employer to respond to learner questions or to receive feedback?
Schedule a meeting
Schedule a meeting between yourself or the employer. During this meeting:
Everyone should introduce themselves.
Have the employer re-introduce the scope of their project and the expected deliverables.
Suggest changes to the project details to better accommodate your experience learning objectives if needed
Ask as many questions as you can about the project and employers ensuring you fully understand the expectations of them.
Confirm any timelines including final due dates and milestones.
Confirm any commitments the you need the employer to make such as recurring meetings with the learners or attending a final presentation.
Accept the match request
Assuming all the above goes well and you are ready to confirm the match of your project to the experience, make sure you:
Take any preparatory actions you need to take before learners begin to work on the project.
Tips & Tricks
Be responsive
Strive to reply to match requests in the shortest amount of time possible, showcasing your commitment to the partnership and honoring the employer's time.
To streamline communication, consider using match request automated messages. These automated messages can inform employers of your response time, share program details, and avoid retyping for each new request, ensuring efficient communication.
Manage your match requests
Responding was fast as possible is advised, but it's not the same as finalizing a partnership. Typically, you have 21 days to update a match's status before it expires. If a request nears expiration and you're still considering it, you can extend its deadline. You also have the option to increase the 21-day limit for all your new requests.
If more than 3 requests expire without an update (e.g., pending to accepted/declined), this will signal inactivity, leading to automatic closure of your experience. To prevent unintended closure, make sure to avoid letting requests expire.