#9 Finding A Career Mentor

Finding a career mentor can be straightforward and easy with the four easy steps talked about it in this episode. 

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Transcript

Hi! This is Anita from the Wise Women’s Workplace podcast and Facebook group. In episode 8 I spoke about why I believe you should have a career mentor – regardless of your level in the organization. Today I want to talk about what you can do to easily find a career mentor who will be a great match for you and your aspirations!

Backstory (Desires internal and external)

As I was working my way up through my career, I reached a place where I knew I needed more than training to get ahead and that I could benefit from some outside guidance.  When I started talking to people around me about my options, I found it a bit confusing because people around me spoke about mentors, career coaches, and building my network and I didn’t really know the difference between each of those. I want to just quickly tell you how I see each of those, and then I will get down to the specifics of mentoring.

A career mentor is someone who can give you advice about what you should do if you want to get to a certain place in your career. They rely on their expertise and experience to make recommendations that they believe would help you.  They will often tell you what training you need, what professional associations to join, what kind of events to go to, and good people to connect with.

A career coach is all about helping you help yourself. A career coach, I believe, should not give you advice about what to do. A coach helps you find what you really want, to set objectives, to get past problems, support you in making behavioral changes, and opening your eyes to bigger opportunities for yourself. While career coaching pertains mostly to your professional life, it should focus heavily on you as an individual. A career coach will really focus on helping you make changes in your behavior or mindset to help yourself.

And then a network is about people that you know to a greater or lesser degree that you have something in common with. These people can be in your professional circle and also in your private life. I like to think of my network as my community. I believe that you should be open to making connections with others and focusing on building strong relationships, not with an aim to get something from the other person, but to be part of a strong community that can step in and support one another when it makes sense. People need other people, we’re hard-wired to want connection and community. Connecting with and maintaining relationships with a diverse group of people can really help you over your career. With your professional network, you can get support from others and support them when you can, too.         

Wall (journey)

Back to mentors! In episode 8, I suggested that having a career mentor at any level would be helpful. But you may be thinking “how do I find a career mentor?” It’s not nearly as hard as you think if you follow some simple steps to prepare yourself first. I am going to outline four steps that should make it easy to find a mentor who is a good fit for what you need.

Epiphany (New opportunity)

First, you need to determine why you want a mentor. Get clear on what kind of guidance you need and what specifically you expect from the mentoring relationship. A good way to start is to ask yourself “What is it specifically that I need help with?” Do you need someone who can tell you the next steps to take to take to get you that promotion you have your eye on? or do you need some advice on how to handle a challenge with a difficult colleague? Those are two very different questions and you need to consider what kind of guidance you need. Also, is this something more general in nature, where you want someone with a lot of general experience or do you require someone with specialized knowledge? If you want some general tips that is quite different than asking a specialist for their expertise. Knowing all of this information will go a long way towards helping you narrow down potential mentoring candidates.

So after you determine why you want a mentor, the Second step is to make sure you have an idea what kind of commitment will be required of both you and your mentor. The person that you approach for mentoring will likely want to know the scope of the relationship. They may not say it that way, but they will want to know approximately how much time they will need to give you, at what frequency and for how long. And you should know about how much time the mentoring will require from you and the mentor, both. I know that is hard to calculate up front, but for the moment just try to sketch out for yourself how much time you think you will need for your preparation before meetings, the meetings themselves, and some time to wrap up and move forward after the meetings.  You won’t necessarily have to show this to the mentor, but you should have an idea for yourself.

After you have gotten the timing requirements clear, the Third step, is to consider where you will find your mentor. Some organizations have mentoring programs, as do some professional associations or even alumni associations. One of the great opportunities in this kind of set up is that you may be paired with someone from a different department or field than you - and this can really help you open your mind to other possibilities.

But if you don’t have one of those options available to you, just start with someone you know. Someone in your organization that knows you is likely to agree to help you. Or, if you have identified someone that you think could be your perfect mentor but you don’t know them personally yet, keep listening and I’ll give you some ideas on how to approach them.  

So now that you know who your mentor could be, step four is to  reach out to potential mentors! When you do so, Make sure you are enthusiastic, polite, and let them know that you would like to ask them for some advice. Don’t get excited or nervous too fast – you both will need time to get to know one another before committing to this.

An easy way to get started is to ask them to have a coffee.  If you are shy about directly asking the person to be your mentor, you could try explaining to them that you were thinking about looking for a mentor and asking them for input. You will likely get a vibe from them during the discussion if they are open to mentoring you or not. By knowing what you are looking for from your earlier preparation, you will be able to share some of your easier questions and this may lead to a mini-mentoring discussion right there and then.

Or, if you want to keep it more formal than inviting them for a coffee, you can ask for a short meeting or simply ask if they have a minute. I find this works well in a relationship where you don’t directly know the person very well but you know you have something in common. You could imagine, for instance, that you are having some specific challenges as a career woman. So you could benefit from being in contact with another woman who is in a higher role and who has more experience. She will likely understand the specific challenges that you are having and is potentially willing to provide help that she may not have had when she was in your shoes. In this case, asking for a short meeting and being direct about why you have approached her, would be a good way to go.

And anyone that you reach out to who says they aren’t available to mentor you, try asking them if they know someone who could potentially be a good mentor for you. Most people like to help and will facilitate a contact if they know someone who could be a good match for you. And you can always decide later if the person they recommend is really a good fit for you or not.

In my experience, mentors are willing to be mentors because they want to give something back, they like to share their knowledge, expertise and experience, and they like contact with people. Some people who you think could be great as mentors won’t be good mentors at all and some people – no matter how nice they are - will simply not want to be mentors. And that’s ok. Don’t take it badly. Make sure to thank them for their time and just keep looking. Persistence usually pays off!

So, let’s quickly review those steps:

1)First, set your expectations by figuring out why you want a mentor.

2)Second, make sure you know what kind of commitment this will require for you and the mentor.

3)Third, consider where to find your mentor. Whether that’s inside or outside of the organization.

4)Fourth, reach out to mentoring candidates!

Remember, a career mentor is someone who can save you lots of time and difficulty in your career and can help you get on the faster track to advancing your career, so it can really be worth it to take this step.

The most important thing will be to find the person with the right profile, who has time for you, and with whom you make a good connection. 

If you aren’t sure what to do with a career mentor once you find one, look for the future episode focusing specifically on that.