Having great mentors can be incredibly helpful in providing guidance and support as you make career decisions and face challenges. You have a broader set of potential mentors in the early stages of your career as almost everyone around you is senior or more experienced than you. The most common and obvious way to find a mentor is to look for someone who has achieved the career success you aspire to and has faced similar challenges in your industry or job function.
As you progress in your career, having mentors becomes increasingly crucial since your decisions become more critical, complex, and nuanced. However, finding mentors may become a challenge for many individuals as the pool of potential mentors shrinks with their career tenure. As you rise into leadership positions it’s essential to gain broader perspectives not only from those who have walked in your career path but also from outside your immediate ecosystem to gain fresh perspectives. Moreover, an excellent mentor-mentee relationship requires chemistry, trust, and connection, which can further narrow the pool of options.
How can you expand your potential pool of mentors? Here are three new ways to identify people who can provide unique viewpoints on your career.
The ones with new perspectives and even fresher skill
If you’re trying to acquire new skills or move into a different industry, finding people with the skill sets you’re looking for is a good idea. You should welcome mentorship from people who are younger and less experienced than you, and keep in mind that mentorship is a two-way street. They can provide fresh perspectives as you learn new skills and gain new experiences while you can offer them your seasoned insights into their paths. To expand your pool of mentors, redefine the scope of “seniority” by skills, insight, or knowledge instead of exclusively homing in on someone more senior than you by age, experience, and title. For instance, given how new AI is, it may be impossible to find a more senior mentor in your job function who is knowledgeable and has demonstrated leadership especially if you are a senior executive. Look for people who may have fewer years of experience overall but are leaders in the space to be a mentor.
The ones who witnessed the people you want to emulate
You don’t necessarily need to look for mentors who have made the same professional decisions as you. Instead, identify people who have witnessed others in the career paths you want to pursue that have a deep understanding of the industry or types of companies you want to work in. Examples of such people are executive head hunters who have long-term relationships with leaders they placed, CHROs or heads of talent from your industry, or other executives who may be in very different job functions than yours but have worked with people you aspire to be like. These people can offer a fresh, outside-in perspective on what it takes to succeed in your chosen path.
The ones who made similar life choices and tradeoffs
Find mentors with aligned values outside your sector/function/industries who have made similar life choices and compromises to pursue comparable aspirations. Many successful professionals have to make similar tradeoffs regardless of those factors, and finding people with minimal career overlap may be the best way to get objective opinions on challenges you face. You can often find these people when you engage in activities that align with your values or interests. For example, my friend is part of a competitive amateur cycling club, and he met people with similar ambitions/lifestyles/goals during the rides. Spending many hours going through physical challenges bonded them and created opportunities to form mentorship circles even though their professional lives and networks don’t overlap.
Remember
Having a diverse panel of mentors who can provide unique perspectives is essential. Each mentor does not necessarily have to fulfill multiple qualifications; you must combine the different viewpoints to decide your next steps.