#10 Meeting With Your Career Mentor

This episode addresses what you can do to keep a great relationship going with your mentor once you finally find one.

For more information go to www.AnitaBelitz.com and join the Facebook group Wise Women's Workplace.  

Transcript

Hi! This is Anita from the Wise Women’s Workplace podcast and Facebook group. In episodes 8 & 9 I spoke about why I believe you should have a career mentor – regardless of your level in the organization – and how to find one which is a good fit for you and your specific needs. In this episode I want to talk about what you can do to keep a great relationship going with your mentor once you finally find one.

Backstory (Desires internal and external)

Once you have gone through the effort of finding a career mentor, you are going to need to spend a little time planning on how to make that exchange work for both of you. The mentor has probably agreed to help you because they really do want to help you but most mentors will be concerned about “creep” – time creep and scope creep. “What does that mean?”, you may be asking - 

Your mentor is likely a busy person and despite wanting to see you do your best, still is only able or willing to help at - what I would call - a first degree level. You can think of this like a casual conversation over a coffee as compared to cooking and eating a meal together. The first case is simply much easier and requires less time and this is likely much closer to what a mentor is willing to offer.

Now, the mentor has agreed to help you and I am sure they want to do so. But I am also pretty certain with a little preparation that you can make the whole experience much more pleasant for both of you.

In order to do that, I would suggest keeping the four following points in mind:

1. First, keep the boundaries and expectations of the mentoring relationship clear in your mind

·    Know what you would like them to help you with from the beginning and make sure you always stick within those bounds unless your mentor offers to do more. 

·    Resist the temptation to go too easily with an offer for help. your Mentor may only be willing to help you for a few times and using up that option on less desirable support may be a waste. So think about what you hope to ask for from the mentor and really try to stick within those bounds to be respectful. Use your best judgement obviously, if they are making small offers to help along the way and if you accept those smaller offers, always be sure to say thank you and follow up by giving them news back somehow.  

·    By sticking to the expectations of the mentoring agreement, your mentor will have more of an incentive to keep supporting you!

2. Second, Do your groundwork in advance to get the most out of your meetings with your mentor.

·    Make sure to have explored venues already available to you-you don't want to have a meeting with your mentor and that the mentor gives you resources that you could have found easily on your own. You would be wasting their time and the opportunity that you would have had to get great insight. Plus, your Mentor will be impressed with the work that you put in to prepare yourself before reaching out and will be appreciative of the respect that you are showing towards them. 

·    Preparing yourself in advance will demonstrate to the mentor that you are dedicated to making this a positive and productive experience!

3. Third, Always be courteous, sincere, and professional

·    You will need to actively manage the scope of the mentoring relationship. This person is giving you their free time. Make sure you are acting in a way which deserves their time. 

·    Make sure that you commit to taking the actions they suggest to you between the meetings and then follow-through! The major part of the workload should be on you. Many mentors will be happy to give recommendations or even share ideas. You can think of this as a friendly conversation. Where it starts to become more challenging - and where you may feel resistance - is when you are taking too much of the mentor’s time, asking them to do things for you. For example, they may be happy to recommend that you get in contact with people of certain profiles. You may feel like they have someone specific in mind. It is generally acceptable to ask “Do you have someone in mind that you think I should contact?” although asking them to put you in contact with the person may be going too far as you are now asking them to use their network on your behalf. If they give you a specific name, it would be good to ask your mentor if you can mention the mentors name to the suggested person when you contact them. If this is the case you should either copy the mentor on the communication or inform the mentor when you have reached out to the person that they suggested. 

·    And, on this point, always be thankful and gracious to your mentor, even if they don’t give you everything you were hoping for.

·    By treating this somewhat informal relationship with a good dose of professionalism, you will be doing what is possible to keep your mentor engaged in the relationship.  

4. Fourth, always be thinking about how you can support your mentor back. As mentioned already, they are giving you their time, experience, expertise, and brain power! You may not yet be well connected enough to help them out with your network, but you may be able to support them on a more personal level - like if they mention things about their childrens’ interests, or perhaps about their hobbies. You don’t need to lavish them with gifts, but sincere gratitude and consideration will certainly be appreciated. If you really feel like a gesture is in order to thank them for their support, you can give them flowers or perhaps a beautiful leatherbound notebook, or something else you know that they will appreciate. I would usually stay away from gifting alcohol.  

So, let’s quickly review those steps:

·    First: Keep the expectations clear in your mind and stay within the boundaries.

·    Second: Do your homework before the meetings take place to make the most of the meeting for you and for your mentor. 

·    Third: Always be courteous, sincere, and professional, even if you don’t always get what you were expecting. 

·    Fourth: always try to help the mentor out in a sincere way, if you can.

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 you need to make the most out of this opportunity. And believe me, a little preparation goes a long way!