Making the best use of your mentorship: A practical guide for AuthorAID members
The benefit of good mentorship is well recognised but finding and maintaining a good relationship with a mentor requires extra effort. I signed up with AuthorAID many years ago, completed my profile, and waited years for a potential mentor to approach me. I was enthusiastic about finding a potential mentor who would help me grow my career, but I did not invest much time in finding one. Was I aware that I needed to make a personal effort to approach a mentor? The answer is 'no'; I would have done things differently if I had. I am writing this piece to give new mentees some practical tips that I wish I had known.
Take the initiative to approach a mentor and be clear about what you require help with. Some mentees may be lucky to have a mentor who makes the extra effort to reach out to them. However, I think it is good for the mentee to approach a potential mentor and ask if they are willing to mentor them. While AuthorAID provides the option for you to select the support you require, you can briefly detail the nature of the support required in your profile
Be specific about the skills that you would want a potential mentor to help you with. Mentees who are definitive about which skills they require are more likely to be matched with a mentor with those skills. You could write something like: 'I require mentorship in writing a proposal for PhD admission.' 'I need help writing a grant proposal for a project investigating risk factors for teenage pregnancy.' It is much easier for a mentor to provide specific guidance if they know exactly what the mentee wants.
Be self-driven. It is a misconception that a mentor plays the most active role in a mentor–mentee relationship. It is much easier for a mentor to provide guidance and support to a mentee who is self-driven. Set goals for yourself and ask your mentor to review and offer suggestions. Your goals should be measurable and achievable, and you need some clear metrics to assess progress. Examples of clear and quantifiable goals could be to publish three papers before December 2022 or to submit two grant applications in 2022. If you have indicated your desired outcomes, it will be much easier for you and your mentor to work out how to achieve these goals.
Share news with your mentor. Your mentor is not getting paid for the time they invest in your development. Make them feel that it is worth the effort. Did you have a manuscript accepted in a journal? Received a prize, award, or commendation for your research? Then share that exciting news with your mentor since it shows that you are making some progress. Besides, your incremental growth will further encourage them to do more for you. Your mentor is likely to have many mentees; your regular updates may make them prioritise your affairs. Don’t feel pressured if you don’t have any positive progress to report. You can always provide updates on unsuccessful grant applications or rejected manuscripts, and your mentor can provide further comments or suggestions to help improve the quality of your work.
Set a time to log in to your AuthorAID account regularly. We all get busy with life and sometimes lose track of our career and professional development plans. Setting a day in your calendar to log in to your AuthorAID account will ensure that you stay focused on your dreams. Besides, it will keep you up to date with researchers who recently joined the platform. AuthorAID provides a filter to identify researchers who logged in to the platform within the last six months. You don’t want to be filtered out by a mentor who is likely to help you achieve your career aspirations. So, endeavour to log in to your AuthorAID account regularly.
Be thankful. Let your mentor know that you appreciate and value their efforts to heko you with your career progression and professional development. When you show gratitude, be specific in how the mentorship has impacted your career.
AuthorAID provides an excellent platform to reach thousands of outstanding academic and career mentors worldwide. It is up to every mentee to make the best use of the platform. To reach your career goals, it is vital that you invest a significant amount in learning how to cultivate quality mentor–mentee relationships. A career coaching article published in the Harvard Business Review and a TED talk by Victoria Black provide some excellent suggestions to get you started as a good mentee.
Dr. Saliu Balogun is a research fellow at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Australia. His research focuses broadly on social and biological determinants of health, particularly among older people.