This article was written by Hadessah O'Neal, an intern at Apolitical.

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Finding a mentor who can guide you through the vast world of public service can be an indispensable tool for success. A well-matched mentor can help you find your path as a public servant by offering you advice from what they’ve learned throughout their career. However, the search for a mentor can feel like a daunting task when you have no idea where to start. That’s why we’ve compiled this three-step guide to make the process easier.

Step 1: Self-Reflection

When you first begin looking for a mentor, you need to first ask yourself what exactly it is that you want out of this relationship. At different stages in your career, you might be looking for a different type of mentor. So, it’s important in this first stage of searching to sit down and reflect on what would be most beneficial for you. The first step is to write down what you want this person to help you with.

A well-matched mentor can help you find your path as a public servant

They could help you find your passion, develop your networking skills, or support you as you work on long-term projects. The options are endless, but it’s important to know exactly what you want before you move forward. Once you have this agenda in mind, you should make a list of qualities that you want in a mentor that would make them the best fit to achieve these goals. Think about what field they work in, how long they’ve worked in public service, or if they’ve had experience outside of public service, if they work at your agency or somewhere else entirely. When you have collected this information, you can begin researching mentor options.

Step 2: Do Your Homework

The next step in the process is actually finding a mentor. The first thing that you should do is start researching different organisations in the public service that are doing work you are interested in (your own department or organisation can be a good place to start) You can use LinkedIn, Twitter, government blogs, or the websites for different organisations that are doing work you admire. Once you have your list, you can reach out to the HR departments of these organisations using this sample email to see if there is already a mentorship program in place. If there is no mentorship program, then you can begin reaching out to individuals at the organisation itself using this sample email.

Be careful about how many emails you send out, because it could be possible that more than one person wants to mentor you and you don’t want to over-commit yourself. Start the process by sending emails out to three to five people and see if they respond. If the people you reach out to don’t respond, or if they do respond and don’t have the time to be your mentor, then reach out to a few more people. Keep doing this until you find two or three options for a potential mentor that could help you with your goals.

Step 3: Make a Connection

The last part of this process is establishing your relationship with your potential mentor. The first meeting is vital to creating a productive relationship for both parties. Plan ahead for your meeting by writing down questions that you want to ask them as well as things that you want them to know about you. Some examples of the types of questions you could ask are asking them about their current work, why they chose to go into their field, what they’re passionate about related to their field as well as outside of it. Find more guiding questions for what you can ask a potential mentor here.

The first meeting is vital to creating a productive relationship for both parties

Don’t feel discouraged if someone ends up not being the right fit as your mentor; there are plenty of other people that you can reach out to. If your first meeting does go well, then your next step is to schedule regular meetings with your mentor and exchange the information that works best for you two to communicate regularly. If your first meeting doesn’t go well, then continue talking to and meeting with other people that you’ve reached out to until you find the right fit for you. Once you have found the perfect mentor for you, make sure you’re communicating with your mentor regularly (you can agree with them on how often you should be speaking) in order to maintain the relationship. — Hadessah O'Neal

(Picture credit: Unsplash)

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