The Perfect Mentor?

No one gets very far in academia without mentors. This is partly because mentoring is built into the structure of academic life.

If you are very lucky, sometimes you can get the perfect mentor assigned to you. Or maybe you just happen to meet someone who would be a perfect mentor for you. But why leave this important part of your career development to chance? Be more intentional about finding your perfect mentor. To help you, here are some of the characteristics to help you find the perfect match.

Currently, I am looking for a mentor to help me improve my public speaking. Here are some of the criteria for my ideal mentor:

• Local- I prefer to have a mentor whom I can meet with face-to-face. This is important, especially for the first few meetings, but it may not be possible if I can't find a suitable mentor in the field that I am interested in.

Explore your local perimeter first to see if you can find a potential mentor before you consider people who are outside your area. If your ideal mentor is not local, make sure that they would be comfortable with a long-distance relationship with you. Although video conferencing is now commonplace and easy, not everyone feels comfortable with the technology.

• Experienced and Expert - There is a big difference between experience and expertise. Someone who is experienced may have many years of doing something well enough, but may not be able to impart that ability to others. But I want to receive mentoring from someone who is better than me at this. An expert. It is true that some amount of expertise comes from experience, but not all. So, it is possible that my ideal mentor on public speaking may be younger than me, but if they are a true expert, that's OK with me.
• Willing - My ideal mentor will be willing to mentor me with some level of enthusiasm. If a mentor is not willing to share their knowledge, spend the time, or does not see the value in mentoring me, they will not be a good mentor. When you choose a mentor, determine their willingness. Have they mentored other people? Are they enthusiastic when you talk with them?
• Available - Many people may have the right expertise and may be willing, but they may be unavailable. I once approached someone to mentor me, and although she was enthusiastic, I could never get on her calendar. It turned out that she was working on getting a big promotion that required her to move to another state. I realized that she was not the ideal mentor for me at the time because she was simply unavailable. If you find that your ideal mentor has no time to return your calls, don't take it personally. You don't know what is going on in that person's life that may make it impossible for them to mentor you.

Right now, I have a list of six people whose public speaking I have admired over the years. Now it's time for me to find out which of them is local, expert, willing and available to mentor me in this area of my career.

This is the third in a series of blog posts about mentors. To download a Free Checklist Meeting with A New Mentor, click HERE.

Dr. Luz Claudio is a Tenured Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health and the author of How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: The Step-by-Step Guide and the Spanish edition: Cómo Escribir y Publicar un Artículo Científico: La Guía Paso a Paso. She has also created the Notebook for Seminars and Lectures. In the books, she teaches young scientists how to publish their research and take effective notes. She also translates environmental health research into information that everyone can understand by publishing fact sheets on her website: DrLuzClaudio.com. The opinions expressed in this blog are solely her own and may not reflect those of her employer, colleagues or associates.