The Problem
The right mentors are critical to career success, but landing one is not always straightforward. I messed this up recently. I was ghosted by a prospective mentor because my approach was too macro. Lots of employees make this mistake. Here’s what I wrote that didn’t work:
Subject: “Future Mentorship”
Email: “How do you feel about 30 more minutes of mentorship toward the end of Q1? You truly have a lot of wisdom to share, and I’m always happy to talk shop about what I’m learning too.
I heard nothing back. I was crushed because I thought we’d had a decent initial meeting.
Did he not like me?
Was he rolling his eyes at me?
What went wrong?
What went wrong was, “30 more minutes of mentorship” was vague. People are busy; they want to know exactly how they can help and what specifics you need. When your request is too macro, it’s easy to deprioritize it.
The Big Small Thing
Use the Micro Mentorship Method to land that follow-up meeting. Here are three examples of Micro Mentorship requests. All are small and specific:
• Could I grab 15 minutes to get your feedback on 5 slides I’ve created? I’m trying to influence my boss to put me up for promotion.
• Is it possible to introduce me to Brian? I’m interested in joining the marketing team one day and would love to ask him about his career path.
• Are you open to giving me your quick take via email on 3 partners I’m considering working with? I believe you’ve worked with them before, and you could fast-track my decision.
Micro Mentorship works. In my vague email above, I never heard back from the person. Five months later, I followed up with a Micro request similar to this third green checkmark, and he got back to me within an hour.
When you ask someone to mentor you, make the request small and specific. Then take their advice and follow up with them to tell them you took it. Most people skip this follow-up step, so be the one who doesn’t! Once you do this a few times, you’ve built enough trust to move from Micro Mentorship (small specific requests) to Macro Mentorship (30-minutes with no real agenda). That’s a natural evolution that your prospective mentor will welcome at that point.
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How This Helps You Chase What You Want
Mentorship is an important part of career growth. You need people ahead of you in their careers to coach you in ways your manager can’t. This doesn’t change that game. It just changes your positioning. It’s still mentorship — just with a clear request and suggestion of how they can help. That’s easier for a busy person to say yes to.
