For Mentors

Helping someone discover The Next Step in their career can be extremely rewarding. It can also be overwhelming if you’re not mindful - here’s a few things to keep in mind to help you help most effectively.

First, welcome! We’re glad to have you here. There’s 3 things that we ask you to anchor yourself to before diving in -

Help because you want to.

Center those you’re helping.

Commit what you can.

Determining the level of support you can give is critical. Are you doing an informational interview? Are you passing along a reference? Are you investing the time to coach and guide someone long term?

Not every interaction has to - or should be - the same. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not in a place to take on even a “low effort” ask at any point, and don’t discount the impact that a “small” thing, like referring one connection to another, may have.

This section maps to our steps for Job Seekers to provide tips and guidance for you as you help someone in finding their Next Step. As you have additional suggestions, resources, and tips to share, please

email us⁠

so that we can continue to make this tool better.

As a note - on each page, you’ll see the following color coding to help you gauge how much effort is required to contribute. Although we’ve included our rationale for each, this may look different depending on your context, so please treat these as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules.

Deciding what you can commit to

Deciding what you can commit to

Level of Effort

Rationale

1 =

Easy peasy

2 =

< = 30 mins

3 =

30+ mins

4 =

30+ mins, network use, or emotional labor

There are no rows in this table

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Four steps to helping others take their next step

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1. Helping to get in the right mental space⁠

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Helping others move from the shock of losing their role to being mentally ready to start looking for new opportunities

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2. Helping to build presence⁠

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Helping others ensure their LinkedIn and resume are up to date - and getting the right level of visibility with hiring teams

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3. Helping to connect to the right opportunities⁠

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Helping others assess their skill sets, open roles, and identifying roles that align best with their strengths and aspirations

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4. Helping to prepare for the interviews and offer⁠

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Helping others understand what hiring teams might look for, and preparing for interviews and negotiation conversations

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