5 Ways to Find a Mentor

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Finding a mentor can be a difficult and time-consuming task – it’s part of the reason why we setup PushFar. However, we thought we would take a step back and write an article about how to really find a mentor who will help you to develop your career and guide you through workplace challenges. The first thing to understand about mentoring, before going out to find a mentor, is just what a mentor can offer you, how mentoring relationships work and why they are so useful. A lot of the most successful professionals across a wide-range of industries will have a mentor to guide and support them.

A mentor is not a coach. In fact, mentoring is not structured to any great extent. Mentoring is very flexible and that is why there is often not more of an understanding as to what mentoring is. Mentoring relationships can often pop-up casually and without intent. It could be a colleague or a contact in your network who gradually becomes your mentor. It might even be an old boss or manager who you stay in contact with after moving to a new organisation or into a different role. However, for those of you out there who are actively looking for a mentor, here are a few ways in which you can find one.

1. Network, Network, Network
Networking is key to business success. Whether in looking for a mentor or simply getting ahead in your career, it’s important to be networking. With the advent of the internet, networking became a lot easier but remember that networking in person is arguably more effective and impactful. Either way, try to do both – make sure you’re networking online and offline at networking events. Put yourself out there, let people know that you are looking for a mentor and don’t be afraid to network with more senior professionals too. If you start to surround yourself with professionals who are aligned with the type of mentor you are looking for, then it is more than likely you will find a mentor soon enough.

2. Join PushFar’s Mentoring Platform
We were obviously going to put this one on the list! Did you know that PushFar is the fast-growing mentoring network with thousands of professionals from across the world? We have thousands of profiles of prospective mentors and mentees, professionals and students looking to connect, get ahead in their career and go further. It’s free to join and a quick, easy and effective way to find a mentor. So, if you haven’t yet joined, make sure you do so! We are the mentoring hub for everyone and our aim as we expand is to make mentoring more accessible, easy and efficient for the world. As well as mentoring, PushFar’s platform offers networking too – so that’s just one more way to tick the first pointer off your list!

3. Review Organisational Mentoring Programmes
Believe it or not, a lot of organisations offer internal mentoring programmes for employees. If you haven’t yet come across one in your organisation, then it is worth investigating, enquiring with your manager or speaking with HR about what they offer in the form of mentoring. While with smaller companies it is more of a challenge to implement mentoring schemes, with an organisation of 50 or more employees it is increasingly common for mentoring programmes to be run.

4. Investigate Alumni Networks
Whether it be your school, college or university, a lot of educational institutions offer mentoring programmes for their alumni. Traditionally, it’s the task of those alumni to mentor students but there are some instances where alumni mentoring programmes are offered where someone who has left can find a mentor who’s more senior. So, it’s worth asking and enquiring with your education networks. If nothing else, you could always offer to mentor someone else – while this doesn’t help you to find a mentor, it may lead to additional opportunities and you will be amazed at the things you can learn from mentoring others too.

5. Ask Family & Friends
Family and friends are a great way of finding a mentor. Whether it be through friends of your parents, siblings or friends of friends, people are always happy to help where personal connections are concerned. While having a friend as a mentor is not necessarily the route we would recommend you going down (having a mentor should be friendly but not necessarily your friend), your friends are likely to have friends and contacts who could be very relevant mentors for you. So, don’t hesitate to ask friends and family, and be clear about what it is you’re really looking for.

So, there we have it, five ways to find a mentor. Remember, mentoring relationships are so vital to career success. If you are looking for a mentor or mentee (or both) then make sure you join PushFar!