Seeking a Mentor? Here Are 4 Key Elements

Having a mentor is extremely important in the career development of students and professionals. Mentors help identify and fix gaps in practical skills and are willing to offer honest feedback on your performance, which, whether you are a student or worker, will help boost your career prospects. Most of the global shapers we see now had mentors who greatly helped direct their career paths and improved their career successes.

LinkedIn is a platform that is rife with many excellent influencers, and has made networking with these influencers extremely easy and convenient. Reaching out to mentors, though easy and convenient, can be more daunting than expected. The process of reaching out sometimes ends in few responses and many outright rejections.

I have been reaching out to great potential mentors on LinkedIn for over two years. And for every few number of failings, I have also encountered some success stories. Through it all, I have noticed some strategies that work and others that are less than stellar in achieving the desired result. Here are some of the key elements and strategies that have worked for me.

 1.      Think of a strategic partner

Students should review the profiles of mentors before they reach out. Try connecting with people who you have key commonalities with. For instance, if the potential mentor is in a position, or field you hope to be in or they have an achievement you admire. You should have a very good reason why you have selected a specific person to mentor you. It should not be a random sending of messages to all the people in executive positions in your network. Students should think long term in approaching mentors.

2.      Be brief and concise in your message

The message you send to mentors should be very brief and straight to the point. The message should not be overly verbose and should be as relevant as possible. I use a system in which I introduce myself, state why I am reaching out and why them specifically. Find a system that works for you, but make sure it is formal, brief and concise.

Also, you should review messages sent to potential mentors to ensure they are free from mistakes and are well-organized. When I look back at some of the first messages I sent to potential mentors, I see why many did not reply. A lot of these messages were riddled with mistakes and lacked structure.

3.      Be patient

Also, most of the mentors you reach out to are very busy and usually have very little free time to spare. So, students must be very patient when mentors do not respond to messages as soon as they would like. I have a mentor whom I had the opportunity to meet almost a year after reaching out. Most managers travel constantly, have long schedules of longer meetings and have their own personal matters to also manage.

One thing you could try when the waiting period now borders on a delaying period is to send follow-ups. I try as much as possible to make my follow up message much shorter than the original message.

4.      Be a valuable mentee

Lastly, and most importantly mentees should also think about the value they can bring to their mentors. This is a principle I am recently learning. Most of us just leech our mentors dry without offering any help in return. As mentees, we should think of ways we may be of value to our mentors, even if they are few.

Thus, in networking with mentors and people in general let us keep a long-term strategy in mind and offer some help. Although the ‘no’ responses may be many, we should learn from each one of these responses. The successes may be few but with a long-term approach, the rewards will definitely be immeasurable.