Intentional mentorship
How to think about mentorship as an early-career designer, and use its benefits to boost your career growth
Intentional mentorship
Seek mentorship as a designer early and often in your career. Someone you admire with more experience can help you see the forest from the trees and proactively identify patterns that you haven’t encountered yet.
Be sure to avoid some of the hangups that come with seeking mentorship:
Put the work in when ahead of, and after, grabbing time with a mentor
Find and leverage mentorship wherever you can — including your 1-on-1s
It doesn’t always have to be a designer 😳
Prepare for your mentor, and act on their feedback
If you haven’t seen it yet, definitely check out Helen Tran’s thread about this topic on Twitter.
There’s a ton of incredible points you can incorporate in your approach. But if we can sum it up for you, we’d say that it’s important to be thoughtful and proactive.
Being proactive about seeking mentorship means bringing something to the table. Don’t approach mentorship as just getting in front of the right people. Set a baseline to improve from, and set measures for success you can report back on.
Focus on discrete, actionable goals with your manager
We spoke to Jon Wood, a Designer at on the importance of mentorship as an entry-level designer. More specifically, we covered how to keep 1-1's with your manager contained, focused, and actionable.
…this week, I’m going to be incrementally better at visual design, research, user testing, understanding problems, communicating design solution. Big goals need to be broken down into smaller ones in order to be attainable.
What that looks like with your (manager) is saying: ‘I want to improve in this/that way so maybe in this week or the next two weeks, what can I work on to improve my understanding of design systems?’ Being able to just to chip at it, a little bit over a period of time is going to bring you far.
Check out the rest of the conversation on the Keming Profiles podcast:
Finding mentorship outside of the discipline
A lot of what we’re hearing and reading about designer mentorship can often feel conflicting or counterintuitive. One of those ideas is finding a mentor who isn’t even a designer.
In this oldie but goodie, How (and Why) You Want to Find a Great Design Mentor, Nathalie Crosbie lays out a slew of tips on both identifying a great mentor and being a stellar mentee.
One of my most valuable mentors was a senior-level executive who was not in design but was extremely skilled in work politics. He provided invaluable guidance on ‘reading’ and navigating the work politics of the place I was working for at the time.
Ask people who are in roles you aspire to what skills serve them best and which they wish they were stronger in. Then seek a mentor with those qualities.
At the end of the day, your professional growth isn’t just about your discipline of choice. You’ll have to rely on more than just the assets you produce as an individual contributor and rounding out your design skills to excel in your career. Learning how to navigate people, communicate effectively, and be a leader are skills that apply across fields.
And that’s good news! Because it means your potential pool of admirable people just got 10x larger.
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