I’m a huge fan of mentoring for your career. The best mentors I’ve had have been direct, cut to the chase types, who aren’t afraid to tell you exactly what they think – good or bad.
When I’ve been fortunate enough to engage such a supporter, I’ve often found their help can provide life-changing advice that yields short cuts to the most fruitful paths.
Therefore, engaging the correct mentor can provide you with the tools you need to reach your goals. Such mentors often act as exemplary role models too.
Thus, the importance of successfully gaining the support of an exceptional mentor cannot be over emphasised.
Mentors will come and go throughout your career and the specific requirements of what you need from them, alter during the differing challenges that arise with what each career stage brings.
For a biomedical researcher working in academia, I can highlight 4 critical periods in their career where support from a badass mentor could help tip the balance towards success rather than failure. In this post, I outline these 4 periods:
1. Considering becoming an academic researcher
This is something any aspiring PhD/postdoctoral researcher considers during their term in a given project. Your project supervisor, if supportive, can often act as a good mentor during this time, but remember you can always identify others if you prefer.
It can also be valuable at this point to obtain a non-academic perspective too (if possible). This will enable you to explore other potential opportunities as well.
A good mentor here (academic or otherwise) can help you align your goals, form realistic expectations and aspirations, and help you avoid a poor career decision. They should also be someone that believes in you more than you do yourself.
2. Obtaining that first academic position
This is often a period in your career where you’re likely to receive mixed advice from colleagues, depending on their own experiences and from senior management about some of the difficult decisions you could face.
There are many pitfalls present at this stage and it is disconcerting to know that not all advice is necessarily applicable to your own situation or indeed provided with good intent!
A sound mentor who has you back, appropriate experience and genuinely wants the best for you, will help you sift out the good advice from bad. Such support is hugely advantageous at this time.
3. At promotion/securing tenure
Applying for promotion or a permanent post tends to be a hugely stressful period in a researcher’s career. This is exacerbated by the fact that in recent years, universities have become increasingly corporate in terms of their decision making towards retention and promotion of staff.
Often metrics need to be met first, before ‘business cases’ are put forward for academic staff to progress on the career ladder at their given institution.
During this tense period, a mentor that acts like a role model, teaching you through his or her own experience of gaining that step is invaluable.
Upon receiving the promotion, a good pair of experienced ears can offer support with sounding out what’s next – e.g. a new administrative role, more teaching, a change in research heading for your next strategic move etc.
The flip side of this is of course denial of tenure/promotion, which can be a very difficult time. A good mentor in this situation will help you find perspective and consider the next steps in your career.
4. Leaving academia
This can happen at any stage and academics will frequently revisit this consideration at multiple times during their career.
The idea to leave academic research can arise for a myriad of reasons. These include the decision to move on to new challenges (new career paths), retirement, changes in family circumstances, to start a company or operate as a consultant for example.
Depending on the circumstances involved in this transition, your network of potential academic mentors may not be the most suitable to help. Their experience could be limited to the academic career trajectory alone.
For this reason it’s a good idea to work on building a non-academic network where you can, to leverage support for potential non-academic activities in the future.
Help and advice from those who have successfully navigated these transitions are well equipped to advise you on a life in a new role, which can mean the difference between a successful transition out of academia or a costly/emotionally devastating one.
So the top tip is to work on establishing a strong and varied network as early on in your career as possible. This way, support will already be in place should you actually decide to take the plunge and try out something new.
Next week I’ll follow on from this post by discussing how best to identify a suitable mentor. In the meantime leave your questions/comments below and remember ‘till next time; stay focussed on your goals and keep learning how to be a badass in your biomed career.
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