A Mentor is an experienced role model who acts like a trusted Advisor providing support to a willing professional towards enabling the individual to manage their careers effectively often with a view to career progression. The ideal Mentor would have "been there/gone there" in other words a good mentor would usually be speaking from experience.
Having defined a good mentor, it is important to mention that professionals need to be deliberate in choosing their mentors to be assured of the anticipated value. Whilst there are no hard and fast rules to finding a mentor, it is often said that the more structured your approach is, the higher your chances of getting the desired value.
To find a good mentor, I would suggest you start by answering three simple questions;
1. Why do I need a mentor?
2. What is the profile of my ideal mentor?
3. Where can I find someone that fits the bill?
Please note that the three questions are related and are better thought through in the sequence presented.
It is clear therefore that your mentor does not necessarily have to come from your field it would all depend on why you need a mentor and the same goes for gender, it really shouldn't matter if your mentor is male or female except of course if your mentoring need is gender-specific.
In terms of finding the right mentor, it is advised you look through structured organisations as well as some organisations who already have structured mentoring programmes on offer. It would add value to research these options as a part of your search.
LinkedIn is another viable platform for spotting good mentors and you will have to be bold to approach any potential mentor you identify on LinkedIn by introducing yourself and mentoring need very professionally. It is not uncommon to get a few declines and the trick is to move on with your search. Finding a good mentor requires commitment and when you do find one, you need to also engage with full commitment to get value from the mentoring relationship.
I wish you all the best.
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