Sometimes people I meet keep asking me if I had a mentor… which I never have. I’m pretty much an independent individualist when it comes to guiding my career although I’ll admit that I’ve not always made perfect decisions (but they usually end up being valuable learning experiences.) Would resisting taking on a mentor be detrimental to one’s long-term career success in Finance?
I don’t have an identifiable mentor, but there are some people whose careers and writing I have followed closely through the years. Whether they know it or not, their ideas have guided me and shaped some of my thinking. So I think at the very least, having a role model is important, if you are not lucky enough to have a live mentor guiding you in your exact target field.
I have several career mentors for various purposes. I attribute a great part of my career success to having received the proper guidance. A real mentor takes a genuine interest in you, understands your strengths and weaknesses, and speaks clearly and plainly about what you can do to expand yourself.
Definitely not having a good mentor is a career detriment; the way I see it, you’re basically just shooting from the hip if you don’t have someone that can give you structured and formulaic guidance, and who actually has the wisdom of experience.
Also, not trying to give myself a shameless plug, but take a look at my LinkedIn recommendations for my career coaching work. In my opinion, it’s not a coincidence that I’ve gotten 30+ recommendations from people that landed jobs, promotions, and successful negotiations as a result of my mentorship. Good mentors systematically help their mentees outperform.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/numicareerconsulting/
The point is, whether you hire a mentor or find one through your own channels, it often helps to get guidance from an experienced professional that really understands your own career objectives. That is what gives someone an “edge” over an un-mentored individual. In my own career, I have hired career coaches while also developing a set of mentors who I don’t pay, but whom I help in various other ways such as professional introductions, sending them stock recommendations, and so forth. To find a good mentor, I think the first thing you can do is identify a role model and then ask how you can help them. It’s much easier to ask for help after you’ve already offered it up.
how do us poor folk non top2 mba not buy side find a mentor
I have plenty of role models from both within and outside of Finance but I don’t have a mentor that I meet with periodically 1 on 1.
Well if you’re getting along fine at this point in your career, I wouldn’t worry about it. Mentors can pop up at many stages in one’s life.
It’s normal but you should try your best to find a good one.
A mentor gave my career a drastic boost and I couldnt not recommend them highly enough. My career was stagnating and I was bored! He gave me pointers on what needs to be done to get me out the hole I was in - it worked and I was promoted a year later.
The issue is where do you get a good mentor from? Luckily I was assigned one via a work program. If you dont have this option, then ******** have started up and they have banking professionals signed up to give mentroing advice.
Where do you find the mentor?
Ban this jabroni
I’ve always said the CFA should have a mentor program where people volunteer to become mentors and they are matched with mentees.
mentees, almost sounds like the plural for manatee
