# Reading a mentor profile

> What the rating measures, what the reliability score measures instead, why a blank one is not a bad one, and what is worth checking before you book.

Source: https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/reading-a-mentor-profile
Last verified: 2026-09-04

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A mentor's page carries two numbers that look similar and measure different things. Reading them
correctly is most of choosing well.

## Rating and reliability are not the same number

|                 | Measures                                                                             | Comes from                               |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------- |
| **Rating**      | How good the sessions were.                                                          | Reviews left by people who attended one. |
| **Reliability** | Whether the session happened as promised - turning up, on time, not cancelling late. | The record of their bookings.            |

**Reliability is about conduct; rating is about quality.** A mentor can be entirely reliable and
averagely rated, and the reverse. If you are booking something time-critical - an interview is
tomorrow - reliability is the number to weight.

## A missing number is not a bad number

> **Warning** - Unrated means nobody has reviewed them yet
>
> It is an absence of information, not a low score. A new mentor has no average, and reliability needs
> a handful of sessions before it means anything either.
>
> Judge an unrated mentor on what you _can_ see - their experience, how specifically their service is
> written, what they say they will do - rather than treating the blank as a warning.

## What is worth checking

1. **The service description, not the headline.** A listing that says exactly what happens in the
   hour - what you bring, what you leave with - is written by somebody who has thought about the
   session. A vague one usually delivers a vague session.

2. **Whether their experience matches your question.** Years of experience is on the profile;
   whether those years are in the thing you are asking about is in the prose.

3. **Their reviews, not just the average.** A few sentences from somebody who booked the same
   service tells you more than the number above them.

4. **Their availability.** A mentor with nothing bookable for three weeks is not the right answer to
   an interview on Thursday.

## Their storefront

`/u/<username>/services` lists everything one mentor has published. Worth opening even if you
arrived at one specific service - mentors often offer a cheaper short call alongside the long one,
and a package if you expect to come back.

## You cannot message them first

There is no way to ask a question before booking, and that is deliberate rather than missing. See [messaging your mentor](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/messaging-your-mentor) for what to
do instead.

## Related

- [Finding a mentor](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/finding-a-mentor) - Getting to a shortlist.

- [Booking a session](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentorship/booking-a-session) - The booking itself.

- [The reliability score](https://www.revquix.com/docs/mentors/your-reliability-score) - How it is calculated, from the mentor's side.