Uncertain About How To Advance Your IT Career? Find a Mentor
You want to advance your career, but the way forward feels uncertain.
Do you…
- Get another certification?
- Go back to school for your masters?
- Just put in more hours and hope someone notices?
The answer to each of these questions is…
- Maybe.
- Maybe.
- Maybe. (But probably not.)
The fact is we can’t answer these questions for you, because these questions don’t have one-size-fits all answers.
Yes, there are certain tried-and-true frameworks you can follow to secure promotions, but the details of your individual career advancement are specific to you. Any highly-focused, step-by-step advice you request has to take into account what career track you want to set yourself on, what incentives you respond to, the particulars of your organization, and dozens of other little considerations that we just can’t answer en-masse.
But don’t worry—you don’t have to answer these questions on your own.
With a little searching, you can find someone within your organization who can answer these questions, help you set a course for your career, and provide guidance on how to reach your professional goals.
This kind of helpful individual is not an urban legend—these people do exist. They’re called mentors, of course, and just about every high-level ambitious IT professional you talk to will attribute their career success to the influence of at least one helpful colleague showing them the way.
And the higher you want to climb, the more you will need a mentor. Over the last year we’ve been talking to some of the most successful IT pros in the world about how they reached their advanced leadership positions.
Nearly every single one brought up how they couldn’t have reached the top without the help of their mentor.
Just consider what Dave Zitur, CIO & COO of the $18b company Travel Leaders had to say on the subject:
Early on in my career I moved up fairly quickly, and I had a really good mentor. One time he told me: “Dave, you’ve got a deficiency here that wasn’t taken care of as you were going up the ladder, and you really need to take care of it.” And I was thinking: “Oh, there’s no way… that’s well beneath me.”
But he was 100% right.
Across my career, I’ve served as the CFO and CIO, and I’m currently COO/ CIO. I can truthfully say that a turning point in my career was the advice to get my fundamental business skills in place.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you love to have someone in your professional life who could provide you with the right answers to your career-advancement questions?
Of course you would. That point is obvious. What’s less obvious for many IT pros is how to find this person in the first place.
It’s your job to find your mentor.
In most well-functioning organizations, the powers-that-be will try and pair you up with a direct manager who can act as a mentor for you. But these good intentions don’t always pan out. And even if your current direct manager cares a lot about your career goals and exhibits the traits required to help you fulfill these goals, that’s no guarantee your next boss will be equally helpful.
If you want reliable access to the mentorship opportunities you need to advance your career—over the course of your whole career—you will have to develop the ability to find and cultivate these relationships on your own.
Here’s how you do that.
A Simple Approach to Finding the Right Mentor
1. Think about your next position.
Not what your position is going to be in 20 years, or 10 years, or even 5 years. What your next position is going to be. Even the most ambitious IT pros can experience anxiety thinking so far ahead, so don’t let ambiguity about your next dozen career steps prevent you from getting help taking just one step forward. For now, just figure out what that step is—or 2-3 options of what it could be.
2. Identify who can help you get there.
This is the simplest and easiest step to ask. Just think up everyone who currently has that position, or is one step above that position. Write down each person’s name. This is your list of candidates.
3. Identify what qualities you need in your mentor.
Some of these qualities are universal. A good mentor will have:
—Experience either performing in, or managing, the next position you want.
—The ability to think creatively about what opportunities you need to advance to that position.
—The necessary placement within the organization to set you up for those opportunities.
In addition to these universal qualities, your mentor needs to be someone you will personally respond positively to. Think about people who have helped you in the past. What were they like? What did they do that motivated you? Were they hard-driving, or soft-spoken? Heavily involved, or hands-off? Just think up a 3-5 qualities you have responded well to in the past, and add it to the above universal qualities. You now have a concrete list of 6-8 qualities you know you need in a mentor.
4. Compare the two lists.
Which of your candidates seem to demonstrate most of the qualities you need in a mentor? Cross off the candidates who don’t, and keep the candidates who do on your list. These are your potential mentors.
5. See what your potential mentors are up to.
Find out what projects they’re working on, what teams they’re leading, what operations they’re responsible for. Identify the concrete goals they’re working towards, then…
6. Help your potential mentors reach their goals.
Sign up to work on their projects, support their teams, take their operational needs seriously. Find a way to contribute to their goals, and then deliver. You won’t be able to help every one of your potential mentors right now, and that’s ok. Just keep an eye on your list and what they’re up to, and help as soon as you can.
You Have to Give Before You Get
This last point is counter-intuitive, and it’s the main pitfall IT pros fall into when they try and cultivate mentorship relationships within their organizations. It’s also the most important step you can take to gain a mentor within your organization for one simple reason…
Before you can reasonably expect your potential mentors to take an active interest in your success, you have to take an active interest in their success.
Mentorship is a lot of work. Your mentors will have to make themselves available to you, put thinking behind your needs, connect you with their network, and take partial responsibility for your career. While a mentor/mentee relationship isn’t a transaction, your potential mentors do need to know you aren’t going to just be a drain on their resources, but that you will be a helpful person to have in their circle.
Developing this sort of mutually-beneficial relationship with your potential mentors will take time, and the path towards these relationships won’t be as clearly-defined as, say, completing a certification, earning a degree, or just putting your head down and logging more hours.
