If you know someone who’s relatively inexperienced but smart, driven, and generally awesome, you should consider acting as their mentor. It doesn’t need to be a formal arrangement; it can simply mean that you’ve decided to take someone less experienced than you under your wing and help them grow professionally. In fact, I tend to think these relationships work best when they spring up naturally anyway.
Over at the Intuit QuickBase blog today, I talk about specific tactics you can use to be an awesome mentor to someone. You can read it here.
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Great post – A couple of those points describes my supervisor for a temp job I had two years ago. She pushed me beyond my comfort zone more than once. We’d spent many hours having frank, open conversations over those 3.5 months. It wasn’t easy at times, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.
How do you feel about formal mentorship programs? My new company has one where HR matches a “mentor” up with a “protege” for 6 months, though how the two interact is up to them. I’m tempted to apply because there is a manager who I want to be my mentor, but asking HR to ask her if she’ll be my mentor feels too much like I’m in middle school asking my friend to ask her friend if they want to take me to the school dance.
I tend to think that informal relationships are often more effective, but since your company has this program, there’s no reason not to use it! She’s not going to feel like it’s middle school since the program is there to be used!
What about reaching out to someone at another company, though within the same industry, that does the job that you one day hope to do? Is there a way to approach a stranger to ask for a meeting, or any advice on how best to get from where I am now to where I one day want to be?
Although I know if it happens, the meeting might be awkward…but it could be a smart move, if only to make another connection within the industry :)
Yes — you are a perfect candidate for informational interviews! (Search for the term on this site and you’ll find a bunch.)
Thank you!! This is so helpful. It’s also good to know there is a search bar on your site, I hadn’t noticed it before!