If you’re reading this you have heard of a mentor, you have a mentor or you’re interest was peaked about this whole mentor thing.

So mentors are essentially other humans that can enter your life to offer tips, advice, and guidance on your career and goals.

Benefits to having a mentor

Have you ever felt a little lost on where to go next in your career? A mentor can be there to help you. In my personal experience mentors have been kind of like a guiding light to that constant thought of, “Where do I go next?”. Sometimes I don’t know that answer to that, but my mentors ask me questions driven to get that answer out of me. In the end, your mentor won’t give you the answer because you have to do what’s best for you. Mentors for me allow me to seeing decisions on my career much clearer, they’re able to offer a perspective that I don’t have because I have yet to experience certain things.

Another benefit to having a mentor is that lots of times, the mentorship can turn into a friendship where both people are giving. In my case, I do ask my mentors lots of questions on what they’ve done in specific situations but at the same time I make sure to always ask if they need anythign from me. I am genuinely interested in my mentors success and them hitting their goals just like they are interested in my goals.

Questions to ask your mentor

• What do you as some pros and cons if I choose to make a career change today?
• Do you have any advice or tips with interviewing at {company}?
• What’s the most important lesson you’ve learn in leading a team?
• How do you think others perceive me?
• How do you approach sticky situations with team members?

Some of the questions above require a relationship to be already built with a mentor. For them to answer those questions they should be familiar with your work ethic, style of learning, goals, career accomplishments thus far, etc.

How to find a mentor

The best way I’ve found to gain a mentor i my life has been previous senior coworkers so developing a relationship with them inside and out of work and staying in touch once both of us go separate ways. As well as networking at meetups and finding another person that is currently or has been in a role that you’re interested in getting into. I’ve never tried cold emailing someone on LinkedIn before, usually it doesn’t work too well.

I’d definitely suggest getting to know your mentor and then letting the mentorship naturally develop. If they are looking out for you and understand where you want to land, there should be no problem in them mentoring you. Of course, they’d have to be willing :).

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