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Ram Castillo—Design thinker, business advisor, psychology speaker, and author—talks about the importance of design mentors and shares his advice and wisdom on the best way to get one.

Four power tips on getting a mentor

We all know success leaves clues. There are experts out there who have done what we ultimately want to do. The fact is, it’s not necessarily that these people are more gifted or talented than us in our particular area of interest. It’s just that they’ve played ‘that’ game before – over and over again. They’re conditioned. Often times we forget that these people we praise in public, have spent years and years practicing their craft in public.

Navigating our way to our end goals can sometimes leave us feeling lost, disappointed and drained. But it doesn’t have to be a ‘go-it-alone’ type of journey. There is a way to lessen the wrong turns. The answer? Getting a mentor.

A mentor is someone who constructively guides, actively participates in supportive dialogue, and becomes a role model to a person less experienced, particularly in the area of professional or personal development.

Mentorship in its complete sense is a two-way street. It is in reflective, collaborative, back-and-forth conversations that learning outcomes are achieved, assessed and measured as legitimate progress.

Because of this, it’s important for designers of all stages to have mentors – in order to continually move forward, grow and be fulfilled. Below are some power tips to keep in mind:

Power tip #1: Get clear on the definition

Mentorship is rarely a lifelong partnership. Finding our version of Gandalf, Yoda or Dumbledore is far too romanticised and can actually be a hindrance to both the mentee and the mentor. This can place a lot of pressure on both ends. If the minimum learning outcome is the focus, then mentorship can be as little as one or two informal conversations over a few weeks about a particular subject matter. It need not be a long-term and formalised arrangement. An example of this could look like someone providing key pointers to be more confident and impactful when presenting to a room of 10 people or even advice on pricing one’s services.

Power tip #2: Go through a personal analysis

Who are you? what do you want? why do you want it? and what’s stopping you from getting it? This is the foundation and starting point of any endeavour. If we don’t know who we are and what we want, we won’t know where we’re going. Just like a soccer player kicking a soccer ball around without goal posts. He or she would be kicking that ball to nowhere. We need to do a personal analysis in order to map out the blueprint of where we’re going and to reverse engineer the necessary steps to get there.

Power tip #3: Pair your goals with the right mentors

Goal setting is pretty self explanatory. I would go as far to say that a lack of ‘want’ isn’t the problem. Most people have a very long list of goals, ideas, hopes and dreams. And so they should. The challenge is bringing them to life. We can accelerate our goals by pairing them with mentors who have demonstrated a credible and above average competence level in that particular area of interest. The right mentors will also hold characteristics and values that we would like to emulate. This is what separates mentors to coaches.

Power tip #4: Don’t ask for mentorship, as for advice

Asking for advice is the seed to growing a single interaction into an official mentorship relationship. This is also part of the rapport building phase. Interact with your prospective mentor by commenting and sharing to their online content. Focus on making friends, not contacts. The official ‘labelling’ of the mentorship relationship is secondary to the information mentors provide. If the mentorship is made official, that’s helpful but not mandatory.

Conclusion:

The truth is we’re all going to get ‘there’. We’re going to meet those goals and tick those boxes. The question is… how fast? Will it take us two months? two years? Maybe even twenty?

Many designers are taking the long route to their professional and personal goals. I certainly did, once upon a time, I was overwhelmed, did the wrong things in the wrong order and burnt time and energy re-inventing the wheel. If it wasn’t for my mentors, I would have kept guessing and may not have survived the design industry’s rapidly changing conditions.

So stop guessing and start getting. You have the opportunity to find your compass. Multiple compasses. People, that can help guide you on your journey ahead. I invite you to cut the guess work, see the blind spots and succeed faster with many mentors – and hopefully, you will in turn mentor others.

Since design jobs are often hard to come, Alexandra Bagão shares her advice on how she handled being offered two jobs at the same time—and the guilt she had to manage from choosing between them.

For months, I had been freelancing, which brought me little happiness. It meant I was engaged in intensive job hunting—and a fair share of existential crises. Suddenly, and very much out-of-the-blue, I received two job offers. Both were incredibly interesting, and both fit the requirements I was looking for. I barely told a soul (God forbid I would jinx things). I couldn’t believe my luck.

However, during my ‘too good to be true’ moment I was both grateful and utterly confused. I was surprised to find myself thinking this was actually a problem that I needed to solve, rather than an opportunity to take advantage of. All because I couldn’t bring myself to decide.

While job hunting, I always expected the process to be straightforward: you search, you interview, there is a job offer, and you accept. I had received my fair share of rejection emails so, in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting that two different companies—at the same time—would see value in me where so many others apparently didn’t, and for what it felt like so long! Being presented with two job offers, and knowing I could only choose one, made me feel ungrateful. My thoughts raced: “This company reached out to me first, they took a chance on me. If I decline I’ll be letting them down”; “This one offers great career progression, but the other team is so cool!”… Faced with this internal struggle of ‘reason versus feelings’, I decided to ask for help. I needed to find a way to put all my thinking into the right boxes and understand what ultimately matters for my life, regardless of any job.

Here is some of the advice I received:

Perspective

For a start, finding yourself with two job offers isn’t a problem (which is what I had actually thought). It’s a great position to be in! It means you’re valued and people are interested in your skillset. This allows you to choose which offer better fits you. It might be overwhelming, but you’re already winning in comparison to when you had no offers.

Second—and most importantly—you’re the only one who can decide what’s right for you. Ultimately, you’re going to have to sit down and think it through. This might contradict the purpose of ‘asking for advice’, however, the advice you receive only adds to your thinking. It should not make the decision for you. In my case, the advice made a huge difference in the process.

Assess the Pros and Cons

This seems obvious, but while some people might advise you to opt for the higher pay, there are other things to consider which are just as important, if not more important than money—especially if this is your first job. This list of ‘other criteria’ is personal, but the assessment should be based on things that connect with you, what you value and want for your future.

You might want to think about financial security, career progression/experience, team culture, the least/most stressful option. Either way, it’s especially worth considering what you want to get out of ‘a job’—independent of the offers—and then see which one comes closer to providing it.

Work isn’t all your life

Consider an opportunity like this as a way to enable the life you want to live. If you’re looking for security, to pay a mortgage or to rent a house, then one of the points in your ‘pros and cons’ list might be certainty (as opposed to volatility). If, on the other hand, you’re established in your career but bored of or unhappy with your current work, then something more adventurous might be what you’re looking for. Either way, I was reminded that work is an add-on to your life. It’s not everything. Keeping this in mind when deciding on job offers might make things easier.

Ask for advice

Asking for help isn’t always our first option, especially with something so personal. But, while it’s true that you’re the only one who can decide, asking for advice from people with more experience or who’ve been in the same situation before can help put things in perspective. If—like me—you ‘think through talking’, then it’s even more important to ask for advice because it will help you describe and identify what matters to you, leading to a less diffuse vision of your own thinking.

Whichever option you take, make it yours

Regardless of which option you choose, commit to it. Don’t dwell on the choice you made, wondering what could’ve been if you’d made a different decision. Otherwise, this attitude will ruin the job you’ve taken. It’s important to believe in yourself and in your decisions, to acknowledge this was the best option for you at this point (!); that the future is ahead of you. So, make the most of this opportunity; put your heart into it—own it!

Keep in touch

As we all know, networking is key. Keep in touch with the company you declined. Remember, they saw value in you so keeping these connections is always a good idea and it respects them.

Give both companies genuine reasons for your choice (the offer you declined and the offer you accepted). You owe an explanation to the people that believe in you. The company you declined should see the honesty in your words and hopefully value you even more. The company you accepted should have a clear idea of why you chose them over someone else, and where your heart really is.

You are not letting anyone down

Having to say ‘no’ to a company that you like, and that gave you a good opportunity isn’t—for most of us—all that easy. There’s more than a shred of guilt. At times, I wished I could’ve divided myself. But you’re not letting anyone down personally. The reality is they can replace you with someone else—as sad as that might sound. Everyone is replaceable when it comes to work.

Last, but not least, this isn’t going to be your job for life

Previously, jobs were often seen as a choice for life. However, today this isn’t the case so take some pressure off yourself… This is a great opportunity—at this moment in time. But if it turns out to be not so great (for whatever reason), you’ve learned a lot in that role and there are other options out in the world. So take it easy!

All this advice, in one way or another, helped me to deal with my unreasonable guilt, to put my brain in order and guide me to a decision that I am very happy with at the moment. And I can say this with certainty because I truly understand what all this means for my life as a whole, not just for my career.