IEEE Spectrum July, 2008 - 15

careers

Your Mentor
and You

Getting the most from
career counselors

Y

DiaMonD Sky/Getty iMaGeS

ou face an important
decision in your career
and don't know what to
do. You're in a difficult work
situation and are under a lot of
pressure. Your confidence is low,
and encouragement from others
just doesn't cheer you up. Your
world seems to be coming to an
end. You need a mentor.
A mentor is someone who
shows you the ropes. He or she
is usually a bit older than you
and in a more senior position,
perhaps in your organization
or in your professional society
network. A mentor can even be
a close friend or relative. I've
benefited in my career from a
half-dozen mentors, including
Bud (at work), Kim (an alum,
still a mentor), and my Uncle

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Joe (who helped me buy my
first car and my first house).
Mentors listen to you and
give you advice you couldn't get
elsewhere. They talk with you,
review your résumé and work situation, help you do your "SWOT"-
identifying your internal strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats-and help you think
through career options and
goals and develop action plans.
Don't be shy: start by
contacting a person you feel good
about. Most likely the person
knows who you are, but on some
occasions it may be a stranger,
in which case you'd have to
explain how you came to call.
But don't ask, "Do you want to
be my friend?" This is not about
making friends. Instead, ask
directly if the person's willing
to give you career advice from
time to time, even to meet with
you regularly, say, for lunch.
Remember that this is a longterm relationship and a two-way
street: you get advice, and your

mentor gets the chance to pass on
wisdom. Therefore, never regard
your mentor as merely someone
to network with. Forcing the
person into a not-so-hidden
agenda can disrupt the building
of a trusting relationship.
Mentors should be easy to
find, and you probably already
know a handful of people who
may fill the bill. Write down their
names and see which one(s) you
feel comfortable getting closer to.
Determine whether your
organization or professional society
has a formal mentoring program.
I've been a mentor for 10 years
in a transportation society and
am matched with "apprentices"
who have between 5 and 10 years'
experience. A mentor within
your organization gives the added
benefit of understanding your
corporate culture and can advise
you on which career moves would
be valuable. He or she may also
understand the people with whom
you may be having some difficulty.
With a mentor providing
support, you won't be alone when
you're facing a difficult situation or
frozen with indecision at an important career opportunity. You'll get
objective feedback from a more
experienced professional who
has your best interests at heart
and who may be able to suggest
approaches you hadn't considered.
And you're making another
professional friend. Many of my
dozen former apprentices have
kept up our relationship, albeit at a
less intense level, which has been
very personally satisfying as I've
watched their careers develop.
You have to make the first
move, and that can be the biggest
hurdle. Go out and find yourself
a mentor in the next few weeks.
Then make the most of this
relationship to help you advance
your career. -Carl Selinger

miniprofile

By Susan Karlin

Jackie
Martling:
Joke Man
Jackie Martling has
made a career out
of telling jokes, most
of them off-color,
notably on "The
Howard Stern Show"
and now on "Jackie's
Joke Hunt," on Sirius
Satellite Radio 101.
But he's a closet geek,
with a mechanical
engineering degree
from Michigan State
University, and he's
learned the hard
way that engineers
make the toughest
audience. His worst
show ever was at
a technical college
in Philadelphia in
1981, where he'd
wowed the crowd
the year before. This
time, though, people
complained that
he told the same
jokes both years.
"Of course I did," he
remembers. "I still
tell a lot of the same
jokes every night. But
no one remembers
them. Except those
engineers that night
at the tech college."
For a sampling of his
humor, go to http://
www.jokeland.com.
photo: Janine Martel

July 2008 * IEEE SpEctrum * NA

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum July, 2008
