How to Find A Mentor When Your Organization Does Not Offer Mentoring
Common career advice says: get a mentor. In some companies that have active mentoring programs open to anyone with interest, this is easy. But for many of us, when our company does not offer mentoring, it can be a challenge to find a mentor.
Before addressing ways to get mentoring, let’s review what value a mentor can provide.
What can a mentor do for you?
Before finding a mentor, it is best to understand what a mentor might be able to do to enhance our career in the workplace.
Possibilities include:
NOTE: The bullets in green are ones that we believe MyCareerMentor can help with.
Finding a Mentor
Approach finding a mentor as a chance to develop some of the skills needed to get ahead in your career. It turns out that the process of finding a mentor can have multiple benefits – giving you a chance to learn and strengthen skills needed for career success / promotions, as well as connecting individuals with career mentors who can provide help and support in their career progress.
Let’s look at several options for finding a mentor for yourself, and what is needed before starting conversations with potential mentors.
Prior to talking to potential workplace mentors and before asking if they would be willing to mentor you, do your homework. Give some hard thought to the following questions, laying out the answers to each of the potential mentors:
Approaches for finding a workplace mentor include:
If you would like to look at guidance provided by others we respect for finding a mentor, the following links may be of interest:
Forbes Coaches Council offers advice from 10 different experts on finding a mentor at http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/11/14/everyone-says-you-need-a-mentor-but-how-do-i-actually-find-one/ - 6e55563f6f26
Marie Forleo (who has a network and events to help people starting their own business) has a YouTube video at http//www.marieforleo.com%2F2016%2F09%2Fmentorship%2F&usg=AFQjCNE2-6hr5Zk1s_kE-gzy-BRbuFGL3g&bvm=bv.139250283,d.amc
Wiki how has guidance for finding a mentor at http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Mentor
Jeff Goins offers 10 not-so-easy steps for finding (and keeping) a mentor at http://goinswriter.com/find-mentor/
Before addressing ways to get mentoring, let’s review what value a mentor can provide.
What can a mentor do for you?
Before finding a mentor, it is best to understand what a mentor might be able to do to enhance our career in the workplace.
Possibilities include:
- Serve as a role model, explaining how and why they made career choices, what actions were taken and why, and the results of those actions – both positive and negative. (You can also use someone as a role model by just observing them, although without discussing their choices with them, it may be hard to understand why they make some of the choices.)
- Serve as a sounding board, to listen to your concerns, and discuss the different options, possible consequences and risks of each option
- Serve as your advocate, providing a recommendation, a reference, or a suggestion to others who may be able to use your talents in a way which will enhance your career growth/prospects
- Provide encouragement for self-guided learning of specific knowledge or skills
- Help you learn to calibrate yourself (understand your strengths and limitations, and how you can use this knowledge in the process of accepting – or rejecting – new assignments, and making effective progress on assignments you accept)
- Give advice (but only when you request it)
- Help you find people, opportunities and information that you might not have found on your own
NOTE: The bullets in green are ones that we believe MyCareerMentor can help with.
Finding a Mentor
Approach finding a mentor as a chance to develop some of the skills needed to get ahead in your career. It turns out that the process of finding a mentor can have multiple benefits – giving you a chance to learn and strengthen skills needed for career success / promotions, as well as connecting individuals with career mentors who can provide help and support in their career progress.
Let’s look at several options for finding a mentor for yourself, and what is needed before starting conversations with potential mentors.
Prior to talking to potential workplace mentors and before asking if they would be willing to mentor you, do your homework. Give some hard thought to the following questions, laying out the answers to each of the potential mentors:
- What do you want from a mentor? (Promotions are typically not promised by mentors, although they observe how well you respond to the mentoring and may recommend you to others in the future.)
- How do you want to communicate with your mentor (face-to-face meetings, telephone calls, email, online, small groups, other media, or some combination of these)?
- How often do you want to talk with your mentor? (Monthly discussions are probably the most common, but weekly or bi-weekly or quarterly intervals are also common).
- What do you have to offer a mentor? These days, mentors may ask for two-way mentoring, where both parties have information to offer the other. For example, a seasoned professional may be able to offer wisdom about the organization, the marketplace in which it exists, and company politics, while a less experienced professional may be able to offer insights into new research being done in universities, the use of newer digital technologies, or experience from a previous company that provides a solution to a current issue.
Approaches for finding a workplace mentor include:
- Ask colleagues you respect if they would be willing to mentor you. If this approach is chosen, understand that you may have to talk to several people before you find one who is willing and can offer what you need in a mentor. If a mentor declines, ask them for names of others they think would be worth asking.
- Ask colleagues you respect in the workplace for suggestions of people to approach for getting workplace mentoring.
- Ask colleagues at your level for contacts of people who have provided mentoring to them.
- Explore formal mentoring programs in any organization you participate in, including industry societies, professional organizations, alumni associations, and community organizations.
- Find a workplace mentor online using a mentoring service such as MyCareerMentor.
If you would like to look at guidance provided by others we respect for finding a mentor, the following links may be of interest:
Forbes Coaches Council offers advice from 10 different experts on finding a mentor at http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/11/14/everyone-says-you-need-a-mentor-but-how-do-i-actually-find-one/ - 6e55563f6f26
Marie Forleo (who has a network and events to help people starting their own business) has a YouTube video at http//www.marieforleo.com%2F2016%2F09%2Fmentorship%2F&usg=AFQjCNE2-6hr5Zk1s_kE-gzy-BRbuFGL3g&bvm=bv.139250283,d.amc
Wiki how has guidance for finding a mentor at http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Mentor
Jeff Goins offers 10 not-so-easy steps for finding (and keeping) a mentor at http://goinswriter.com/find-mentor/