What does a healthy mentorship relationship look like?

Question

Context: I'm really inspired by one of the engineers on our team, who recently joined. I'd like them to be my mentor, however I'm unclear on what I'm looking to get from the mentorship relationship. From my experience, working with a mentor often ends up being a weekly meeting where I just end up asking them random questions. In general, I'm looking to learn from their experience, consult on some of the work I'm doing, share my struggles, etc. However, I'm not sure if this is the best way to utilize a mentor.  Question: What does a healthy / productive mentorship relationship look like? That is, what should I look to get out of my mentor and what can I offer them?

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

All of the things you mentioned are things that normally happen with a mentor. The thing you should be focusing on now is how you can make this person want to mentor you, which I explain here: "How does one attract a sponsor who is invested in their growth?"

The interesting thing about your scenario is that this person is new. You can earn a lot of trust with them very fast by being their onboarding mentor. If they don't have an assigned person, you can talk to your manager about becoming their official onboarding buddy. If this happens, it's very natural for you to have a weekly 1 on 1. Over time as they get more familiar with your team's codebase and culture, the dynamic of your 1 on 1 meeting can flip where they are providing you value from their experience instead of just you helping them.

Here's a good related course about all this: Networking Guide: Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech

What does a healthy mentorship relationship look like?

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