Mentorship in Life and Technology

As a junior dev with two years in the software industry, I recently had a chance to mentor an intern in my company. As someone in their shoes not more than a year ago, I felt that I had a wealth of knowledge to present to him, especially because it was his first internship at a large company. Bridging this experience gap proved to be a massive challenge - one that I’ll discuss in the remainder of the article.

I wanted to provide helpful guidance and make a positive impact on this person’s career. Feeling the burden of this responsibility, I asked fellow coworkers how they approached interns they mentored. There were a lot of answers, and they ranged from befriendment to being overly honest. However, still faced with the question of what path I should take, I remembered back to my first internship.

I was a starry-eyed kid with no experience at a white-collared job. Excitement and nervousness described my first day of work. After being introduced to the team, I situated myself and started making mistakes. The first mistake I made was replying to emails and addressing people as Mr. and Mrs. Now I realize why people avoid interns because sometimes it can be so cringy. The practice of addressing people like that ended fifty years ago!

The first time I messaged my mentee, he too addressed me by my last name. These mistakes are very likely to happen to anyone with little experience. I saw myself in him, and I wished that I could just convey all of my experiences and jumpstart his career. The first time we met, I tried to do just that and gave him very honest answers and solutions to the problems he faced. For example, when my mentee told me he was stressing out and felt like he wasn’t making a large impact on the team, I told him something to the effect that he’s just an intern and that he should just slow it down and not stress himself out so much. I told him that interns have gotten away with doing far less, and that he should go to his manager for work and set goals and priorities.

As much as I tried to give advice, it didn’t stick. Looking back, it was more of a learning experience for me than it was for him. My mentee was very ambitious, and saying to work less was advice that was detrimental to our relationship. Mentors’ and mentees’ relations are built on the back of trust. It takes time and effort to earn this trust. Ideally, a mentor should listen to what the other person is saying, and tailor a response that the mentee will understand. Moreover, sometimes people have to go on the journey themselves to gain knowledge and experience. No amount of verbal description will ever replace the experience of doing something. This is the struggle of mentorship. It’s more about listening to the other person and giving tailored advice at the right time. It’s about understanding the other person’s goals, and providing them with guidance on how to reach them. Finally, it’s about giving advice to a person when they are ready to understand it.