The time of COVID may have turned our conference experiences into an ‘80s adventure game through the magic of Gather, but the same human dynamics underlie the faux 8-bit avatars. One of my latest virtual job fair interactions involved a student complaining that their PhD advisor wouldn’t “let” them graduate yet, citing the classic lament that students leave just when they get trained and useful. This encounter reminded me of an important but often neglected distinction between advisors (and bosses/supervisors in general) and mentors.
If you had asked me during graduate school what the difference was between an “advisor” and a “mentor,” I would have said they were synonymous. My subsequent years in the private sector, and the sometimes-rocky road getting there from academia, showed me that it is usually unrealistic to expect your graduate advisor to also be a good mentor. The same goes for your supervisors once you get a “real” job. There are several reasons for this:
1. Conflict of Interest
Business-sector-oriented advice about finding a mentor typically recommends looking beyond your boss. Ideally, you want someone a few levels above you in a different division or (preferably) a different company. The shorthand for this is “two up and one over.” There is solid logic behind that advice. A good mentor takes an interest in your career without having an interest in it. Your boss (e.g., your graduate school advisor) has a strong interest in keeping you happily working in your current role because that is how he or she gets the best return on the investment of training you. Likely, few academics think about their students in such explicit terms but the underlying conflict is there all the same. The situation is even more fraught for your supervisor in a company, who, by definition, must weigh the interests of the organization against your personal interests. A true mentor is concerned only with your side of the equation.
2. The Experience Gap
A graduate student’s advisor is almost always a research university professor. As I have discussed earlier, over 80% of graduate students will become something other than a research university professor. Therefore, there is a big mismatch between the career experience most advisors have and the working lives most of their students will lead. The issue of an experience gap can also crop up outside the academy. If you are looking to make a significant career change from one industry to another, your current supervisor, or anyone else in your current organization, probably lacks the knowledge (and motivation) to mentor your transition. A mentor from your new target industry will help you much more.
3. Networking
While your advisor is a great beachhead into the network of research university professors, you probably will not find many career opportunities in that network. Finding mentors outside academia gives you an access point to another, more career-pertinent, network. The same logic applies to finding mentors outside your current company, or your current division within a large company, to expand your options and broaden your perspective.
Finding a Mentor
If your advisor or supervisor is not your mentor, how do you find the mentors you need? The use of the plural here is deliberate, by the way. While it is appealing to imagine finding a single, lifelong mentor to help guide you through the years, the reality is that you will probably need a series of mentors to help steer the course of your career as you develop and evolve. There are two general strategies to finding mentors: formal and informal.
Many formal programs exist to match up willing mentors with prospective mentees. These often function like dating apps. Both parties post profiles, then mentees browse for a suitable mentor and request a connection through the service. The requested mentor accepts or declines. The big plus of formal programs is that you know you are looking for a mentor in a pool of people with a declared interest in mentoring. Of course, that comes with the drawback of a limited pool size. The structure a formal program provides is also helpful if you are new to the concept of mentorship or doubt your social skills.
Finding a formal mentoring program to join is probably easier than you think. The primary places to look are your alumni associations and professional organizations. Here are a few examples:
- American Physical Society Industry Mentoring for Physicists
- IEEE MentorCentre Program
- Stanford Alumni Mentoring
- UCLA Alumni Mentor Program
The American Physical Society (APS) program is particularly useful because it is open to all physicists. I co-founded IMPACT with my friend and colleague, Steven Lambert (then the Industrial Physics Fellow of the APS) with the goal of serving the whole community and it is quite successful. Participation requires an APS membership, which is inexpensive (and initially free if you are a student).
The informal route to finding a mentor is just an enhancement of normal networking. As you work to meet new people and expand your professional circle, you will find individuals with whom you have a particular rapport or who have something unique to contribute to your personal board of advisors. Over time, you can foster a mentoring relationship with many of these people. An informational interview is a good way to initially engage a prospective mentor.
Regardless of how you find a mentor, remember that managing the relationship is always the mentee’s responsibility. Any mentor who can help you almost certainly has more demands on his or her time than you do. Do not expect the mentor to follow up, schedule meetings, etc. If you take the initiative and are politely persistent, you will find many successful professionals willing to mentor you toward your own bright future.