The Hidden Benefits of Mentorship

You’ve been told to “find a mentor” since your first day at work. So you’ve had coffee with senior people, asked for career advice, maybe even set up recurring check-ins.

But the conversations feel forced. You’re not getting what you expected. And the people who seem to benefit most from mentorship aren’t doing what you’re doing.

The Problem

You found a mentor the way you’re supposed to. Someone senior in your field who agreed to meet monthly and give you career guidance. You prepare questions. They give you advice. You thank them and try to apply what they said.

But you’re not getting much out of it. The advice is generic—“network more,” “take on stretch projects,” “communicate your wins.” It’s the same stuff you could read in any career article. The relationship feels transactional. You’re asking for wisdom, they’re dispensing it, and neither of you is particularly engaged.

Meanwhile, you see colleagues who seem to have mentors who actively advocate for them. Who make introductions. Who give them opportunities. Who seem genuinely invested in their success. You don’t know how they got that kind of relationship, but it’s clearly not what you have.

You’ve also tried being a mentor to more junior people. You give them your time, answer their questions, offer guidance. But it feels like you’re just repeating obvious advice. You’re not sure you’re actually helping, and you’re definitely not getting anything out of it yourself.

The whole mentorship thing feels like a box you’re checking because you’re supposed to, not because it’s genuinely valuable.

Why this happens to knowledge workers

The traditional model of mentorship—wise elder imparts knowledge to eager junior—doesn’t fit how modern careers actually work. Industries change too fast. The advice that worked for someone who started their career 20 years ago often doesn’t apply to someone starting today.

Research suggests that the most valuable mentorship relationships aren’t about knowledge transfer. They’re about access, visibility, and pattern recognition. But nobody frames it that way, so people optimize for the wrong things.

Many people find that they’ve been taught to extract value from mentors rather than create mutual value. You’re supposed to “get mentorship” like it’s a resource you consume. This creates awkward, one-sided relationships where the mentor is doing you a favor and you’re trying to maximize what you extract from their time.

There’s also a mismatch in what people think they need versus what actually helps. You think you need career advice. What you actually need is someone who understands the political landscape of your organization, who can tell you which projects actually matter, who can make you visible to decision-makers.

The formal mentorship programs make this worse. Assigned mentor-mentee pairings rarely work because there’s no organic reason for the relationship. You’re supposed to connect because HR matched you on a spreadsheet.

What Most People Try

The most common approach is to seek out senior people and ask them to be your mentor. You identify someone impressive, send them a message explaining why you admire them, and ask if they’d be willing to mentor you.

This rarely works. Senior people are busy. “Will you be my mentor?” is asking for an ongoing time commitment with unclear value for them. Most people either politely decline or agree but never follow through.

Some people try the transactional approach. They schedule informational interviews with people they want to learn from. They come prepared with questions. They take notes. They send thank-you emails. They’re very professional about extracting information.

But they’re not building relationships. They’re conducting interviews. The person they talked to doesn’t remember them three months later because there was no reason for them to.

Others try to create value by helping their potential mentor. They offer to do research, make introductions, or help with projects. Sometimes this works, but often it comes across as trying too hard or offering help that isn’t actually valuable.

Many people give up on formal mentorship and just try to learn from their manager. But your manager has a specific relationship with you—they evaluate your performance and control your career progression. That’s not the same as mentorship, and conflating the two creates problems.

The real issue isn’t finding the right mentor or using the right approach. It’s fundamentally misunderstanding what makes mentorship valuable.

What Actually Helps

1. Build relationships around mutual interest, not hierarchy

The most valuable mentorship relationships aren’t based on “you’re senior, I’m junior, teach me.” They’re based on “we’re both interested in the same problem, let’s figure it out together.”

Look for people who are working on problems you find fascinating, regardless of their seniority. Someone two years ahead of you who’s deep in machine learning interpretability might be a better mentor than a VP who hasn’t done hands-on technical work in a decade.

When you reach out, lead with the shared interest, not the ask. “I saw your post about X. I’ve been thinking about similar problems from a different angle. Here’s what I’ve learned…” This creates a peer dynamic even if there’s an experience gap.

Many people find that their best mentorship relationships started as collaborations. You worked together on something, discovered you think well together, and the relationship naturally evolved into one where you learn from each other.

The key is creating reasons to interact beyond “I want career advice.” Join communities around topics you care about. Contribute to projects. Write about problems you’re solving. This puts you in proximity to people who can mentor you without requiring you to formally ask.

When you do have conversations, make them valuable for both people. Don’t just ask questions—share what you’re learning. Point them to interesting resources. Make connections between their work and things you’ve seen. The best mentorship is a conversation, not an interview.

2. Use mentorship to build visibility, not just knowledge

The hidden value of mentorship isn’t the advice you get in conversations. It’s that someone senior knows who you are, knows what you’re capable of, and thinks of you when opportunities arise.

This means the quality of the relationship matters more than the frequency. Having coffee with a VP every month where you ask generic questions builds very little. Working with them once on something meaningful where they see your thinking in action builds a lot.

Research suggests that people who benefit most from mentorship aren’t the ones who ask the most questions. They’re the ones who’ve made themselves memorable by doing good work in contexts where mentors can observe them.

Look for opportunities to work on things your potential mentors care about. If a senior leader is championing a specific initiative, volunteer to help. Not to get face time, but because you’re genuinely interested and you’ll do good work.

When you do excellent work that someone senior notices, that’s when you follow up. “I really enjoyed working on X. I’d love to understand more about how you think about [related strategic question].” Now you have a reason to connect that’s grounded in demonstrated capability.

Many people find that the mentors who actually open doors for them aren’t the ones they formally asked to be mentors. They’re the people who saw them do something impressive and decided to invest in them.

Don’t optimize for regular scheduled mentorship meetings. Optimize for doing work that makes senior people aware of you and impressed by you.

3. Mentoring others clarifies your own thinking

The hidden benefit of being a mentor is how much it helps you. Explaining your thinking to someone else forces you to articulate things you’ve only understood intuitively. Teaching reveals gaps in your own knowledge.

When someone junior asks you how you approach a problem, you have to break down your process into steps. This often reveals that your process isn’t as good as you thought, or that you’re making assumptions you should question.

Many people find that mentoring someone makes them better at their own job. You notice patterns you’d missed. You question habits you’d developed. You’re forced to stay current because you can’t just rely on outdated knowledge when someone is asking you specific questions.

The key is choosing to mentor people who are genuinely curious and who ask good questions. Mentoring someone who just wants you to solve their problems is exhausting. Mentoring someone who uses your perspective as one input into their own thinking is energizing.

Also, mentor people who aren’t just younger versions of you. Mentor people from different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ways of thinking. The value comes from the cognitive diversity, not from replicating your own path.

Don’t think of mentoring as charity or obligation. Think of it as a way to stress-test your own thinking and stay exposed to different perspectives. The people you mentor keep you sharp.

The Takeaway

Mentorship isn’t about scheduling coffee with senior people and asking for advice. The real value comes from building relationships around shared interests, making yourself visible through good work, and mentoring others to clarify your own thinking. Stop trying to extract mentorship and start creating the conditions where it happens naturally.