A new analyst writes up what went wrong on a messy project and asks a senior colleague in another team to comment. She reports back on what she changed, and asks again next time. A few rounds later, the colleague is explaining how decisions really get made. Neither of them has used the word “mentor”.

Research suggests that is how most workplace mentoring begins, and it changes how to find a mentor: you build the relationship rather than locate the person. Name what you need, look among people you already work and learn with, let a relationship grow before you label it, use any formal program as a way in, and spread your needs across several people. The benefits linked to mentoring are modest, so look for useful help, not a rescuer. The steps:

1. Name what you need help with
2. Look where you already work and learn
3. Let the relationship grow before you name it
4. Use a formal program as a way in
5. Spread your needs across several people

Where mentors come from

In a large US survey comparing formal and informal mentoring, most relationships had formed informally, out of shared work and interests, and research on how they start suggests mentors tend to choose people who look like rising stars. In a 1999 survey of US engineers, social workers and journalists by Belle Rose Ragins and John Cotton, people with informal mentors outnumbered those whose mentors came through a formal program about five to one, and only the informal group reported more promotions and higher pay than people with no mentor. Why informal? Ragins and Cotton’s review of earlier research describes how these relationships start: the senior person sees a younger version of themselves, the junior person sees a role model, and both judge each other competent and easy to work with.¹ None of that can be arranged on a form. It shows up over a few projects and conversations, so the people best placed to mentor you are often those who have already watched you work.

Mentors also pick. A study by Romila Singh, Belle Rose Ragins and Phyllis Tharenou followed employees who had never had a mentor: those on a fast track for promotion, with higher expectations of advancing and more proactive career behavior, were more likely to have gained one a year later.² This rests on the abstract; the full paper could not be opened.

Eby and colleagues’ 2013 meta-analysismeta-analysis: A study that combines the results of earlier studies on the same question into one overall estimate. Pooling makes the estimate more precise, but it cannot repair the studies it pools: a meta-analysis of surveys is still survey evidence.Full entry in the glossary of mentoring research found that protégés’ sense of support and of a good relationship was most strongly linked to feeling similar to their mentors in values, attitudes and personality. Similarity in gender or race mattered much less, and a shared background, such as the same department or field, went mainly with practical help.³

Picture it from the senior person’s side. Two junior colleagues ask for advice in the same week. One asks, “Any tips?” The other brings a half-finished plan, asks which of two options you would choose and why, and tells you a week later how it went. The second has shown competence and initiative, signals these studies suggest mentors respond to. You can’t decide to be on a fast track, but you can make your initiative visible to the people you want to learn from.

How to find a mentor, step by step

Five steps turn those findings into a routine; the first and last lean more on researchers’ advice than on data.

1. Name what you need help with

Before you look for anyone, write down the next step you want to take and the two or three things you don’t yet know how to do. Kram and Higgins put self-knowledge first, including an honest look at how comfortable you are asking for help, and note that most professionals rarely seek advice actively.⁴ Make the note specific. “Lead a small team next year; I have never run hiring or given hard feedback” tells you whom to look for, where “grow my career” does not.

2. Look where you already work and learn

Start with people you already have reasons to talk to: your manager, senior people in neighboring teams, former colleagues, alumni and members of a professional association. For hands-on know-how, lean toward people in your own field or department, since in the 2013 meta-analysis that kind of shared background went with more practical help.³ Your manager counts too, and regular one-on-one meetings give development talk a standing slot.

Since mentors seem to notice initiative, as the fast-track study above suggests, make your work visible to the people you would like to learn from.² The site’s guide to getting noticed for good work covers how.

3. Let the relationship grow before you name it

Begin with a specific question or a small piece of work to comment on, then report back on what you did with the advice. A short note is enough: “I cut the second option from the proposal, as you suggested, and the client went with the first. Could I show you the next draft?” Protégés who met their mentors more often reported more support in Eby’s 2013 meta-analysis, and the authors suggest the deeper similarity that bonds people takes time to show.³ The data are correlational, though, so good relationships may also lead to more meetings, rather than meetings alone building them.

Think about what the other person gets. Ghosh and Reio’s 2013 meta-analysis of 18 studies, mostly one-time surveys, found mentors more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their organizations than non-mentors.⁵ Kram and Higgins suggest asking what a prospective mentor might learn from you.⁴ How to word a request, if you make one at all, gets a separate guide.

4. Use a formal program as a way in

If your employer runs a mentoring program, join it for the introductions, ask how much say you will have in your match, and keep building informal ties alongside it, for reasons the next section explains.

5. Spread your needs across several people

Aim for a handful of people rather than one: someone senior inside your organization, a peer, and at least one person outside it. Yip and Kram, citing an earlier study, note that people seem satisfied with three to five close developmental relationships at a time.⁶ Revisit the list when your goals change: in an example Kram and Higgins give, the network that helped someone make a career move was unlikely to be the one she needed after it.⁴

WiserHours

Finding your first advisers

• Write down my next career step and what I need to learn
• List people I already have reasons to talk to
• Ask one of them a specific question this week
• Report back on what I did with the advice
• Join any mentoring program and ask for a say in my match
• Check my advisers still fit when my goals change

Find this checklist online:
https://wiserhours.com/networking/find-a-mentor/#checklist-find-a-mentor-steps

Formal programs or informal mentors?

Informal mentors tended to give more than mentors from formal programs in Ragins and Cotton’s 1999 survey, but a formal program can still be a useful way in. Protégés with informal mentors reported more help across most of the mentoring roles the study measured, such as coaching and role modeling, and more satisfaction with their mentors. Why the gap? Formal pairs are usually matched by a coordinator and often work to goals, meeting times and a length set at the start, while informal pairs choose each other.¹ An assigned match skips the stage in which two people find out whether they want to work together at all.

The pay and promotion difference has a catch the authors name themselves: people who land informal mentors may be stronger performers or more career-driven to begin with, so they might have done better anyway. The answers were also self-reported and recalled over years.¹ Pooling many studies, Eby’s 2013 meta-analysis found the formal-informal difference in perceived support consistent but small.³

How a program runs seems to matter. In a 2006 study of formal mentoring programs by Tammy Allen, Lillian Eby and Elizabeth Lentz, two design features, a sense of having input into the process and training rated high in quality, were consistently related to the mentoring people reported and to relationship quality.⁷ Ragins and Cotton suggest programs imitate informal mentoring, for example by training people and then letting them choose their own partners, and warn against implying that an assigned mentor is all anyone needs.¹

Say your company pairs you with a finance director you have never met. Bring a concrete problem to the first meetings, ask who else she thinks you should talk to, and notice whether the talks help. If they do, the match is becoming a relationship; if not, you still gained an introduction.

Why one mentor is rarely enough

A single mentor rarely covers everything a career needs, which is why researchers now describe mentoring as a network. In a 2001 paper, Monica Higgins and Kathy Kram proposed treating mentoring as a set of several relationships, a developmental network, described by how strong its ties are and how varied it is.⁸

The main test we found is a longitudinal studylongitudinal study: A study that measures the same people more than once over a period of time, so it can see how they change and which thing came first. Following people over time still does not show that the earlier thing caused the later one.Full entry in the glossary of lawyers’ careers by Higgins and David Thomas. The quality of a person’s main mentor went with short-term outcomes, such as work satisfaction and intentions to stay, while the makeup of their whole set of developers went with longer-run outcomes, such as staying with the firm and being promoted.⁹ It covers one profession, and we saw the abstract, not the full paper.

1. One mentor: a single relationship expected to supply advice, support and advocacy on its own
2. Developers inside your organization: for example your manager, a senior colleague in another team and a peer, who know how things work where you are
3. Developers outside it: for example a former boss or someone in your field at another employer; Kram and Higgins note that the people in a developmental network may span several departments, organizations and places

Why would several people do better than one? Kram and Higgins’ answer for managers is that no one mentor can supply all the guidance, exposure and opportunities a modern career needs, and a developmental network is generally a small group, about five people.⁴ A 2017 review by Jeffrey Yip and Kram adds that returns diminish as networks grow, and that close-knit networks suit people advancing where they are, while looser ones suit people changing course.⁶

Take a product designer who wants to move into management. Her manager explains how promotions are decided, a peer who made the move last year describes the first months, and a former boss at another company offers an outside view. No one of them could do all three jobs well.

The outside adviser earns a place for the same reason as acquaintances who hear about jobs your friends miss: someone beyond your usual circle may spot options your close colleagues overlook.

How much difference a mentor makes

On average, people with mentors fare somewhat better than people without, but the difference is small, and larger for how people feel about their work than for pay or promotion. That was the verdict of a 2008 meta-analysis by Lillian Eby, Tammy Allen and three colleagues.¹⁰

The study

Moderate evidence

Mentored or not: 112 studies from youth programs to workplaces, pooled in 2008

The authors pooled studies that compared people with and without a mentor, just under half of the samples from workplaces. Having a mentor was linked to better outcomes of almost every kind they examined, from job attitudes and relationships at work to performance and career success, but every overall effect was small. Some of the largest links were with attitudes, such as career satisfaction, and among the smallest were with career recognition, such as pay and promotion.¹⁰

The authors caution against expecting too much, because many of these studies simply asked adults whether they had a mentor, and people who are already doing well may attract mentors in the first place, which would make mentoring look more useful than it is. Results built largely on correlationcorrelation: A measure of how closely two things move together, running from minus one, where one rises as the other falls, through zero, meaning no link, to plus one. It says how strong the relationship is, not what causes it, and it is not a percentage.Full entry in the glossary cannot show that the mentor produced the difference.¹⁰

A newer review by Gary Ivey and Kathryne Dupré, the latest we found, is just as careful: workplace mentoring appears to help in particular circumstances for particular groups, research gaps limit how conclusive that is, and it carries potential risks and costs.¹¹ Its full text was out of our reach, so this rests on the abstract. The site’s roundup of what predicts pay, promotion and career satisfaction finds the same pattern in an earlier workplace meta-analysis.

Myth

The right mentor is a fast track to promotion.

Fact

Across studies, mentoring went more with how people felt about their work than with pay or promotion, and the average links were small.

So expect perspective, new skills and a sounding board rather than a raise. Say a mentor walks you through your first budget proposal: the next one goes in stronger, but your pay does not change on its own. Someone who actively puts your name forward for promotions and stretch assignments is often called a sponsor, a role with its own guide.

How far the mentoring research goes

Most mentoring research is correlational, and the advice about networks rests largely on the researchers’ own experience and reasoning, so treat the steps above as sensible bets rather than tested methods.

In practice: judge a mentoring relationship by what you learn from it, and keep adding people as your needs change.

The bottom line

A mentor is usually someone you already work alongside, found through repeated, specific contact rather than a sign-up form, and the benefits linked to mentoring are modest. Know what you need, make your initiative visible, let the relationship grow before you name it, and use any program as an introduction. Then aim for a few advisers who each help with something different, since no single person is likely to cover it all.