You’ve probably heard the benefits of finding a mentor, how they can help with skill development and learning the ropes in the working world. Mentors can offer wonderful advice on how to handle some of the unspoken rules in the business environment, as well as help coach and challenge you in your career.

But you can’t trust just anyone with this role. Here are three things to look for when you’re selecting a mentor.

Find someone you respect.
They could be the hot shot sales rep in your business or the fastest on the production line, but do you respect them? Consider your personal values when selecting a mentor. One person’s style and method for getting to the top may not align with your values and work ethic. Even if you admire someone’s achievements, if you can’t respect the way they reached them, there isn’t any point in making them your mentor.

Find someone you trust.
Once you’ve established a mentoring relationship, you’ll be sharing your challenges and frustrations in order to seek advice and learn. This information is often best kept confidential. If you can’t trust your mentor, you may find yourself holding back or not offering your full side of the story, which then results in a relationship that isn’t as productive as it could be. Your mentor should be someone you can share your failures with so you can get advice and a different perspective – without worrying your story will become office gossip.

Find someone you can mutually learn with.
You’re never done learning, especially in today’s business environment. It’s best to select a mentor who is still working and growing in the business world, someone you can learn from and alongside. This is important when trying to learn how changes in production, financing, communication, and technology will impact your industry. If you have someone who can give you a historical perspective in the industry while going through a transition or change in your job or business, it will provide a unique filter to the situation and give you greater confidence.

Keep in mind, not all mentor relationships are formal. You may learn and take advice from someone on a certain project or at a certain stage in your career, and it won’t be until later that you look back and realize you were being mentored. However, it’s important to make sure you consider the source when taking advice on your career. Hopefully, these three things to check for will be a quick and easy reminder for you to filter guidance through.

What do you look for in a mentor? Share with us in the comments section below.

While older generations may think that younger generations change jobs more frequently, history shows a different story. The U.S. Department of Labor found that individuals born between 1957 – 1964 on average held 11.3 jobs between ages 18 to 46. Even more interesting is the fact that 5.5 of those jobs were held between the ages of 18 to 24. So, if changing jobs is common during any career span, how do you make the choice on when to job hop?

Do You Need to Work?
While you may have a dream career you are striving for, or would like to spend your days developing the newest app or writing a novel, for most people the fact of the matter is you need to work to provide for yourself and possibly your family. It’s safe to say that at some point in everyone’s career, or maybe for a majority of their career for others, work will be just that, work. Try to determine if your current interest in job hopping is a sign of burnout or just job stress. If it’s burnout, you may seriously want to consider changing jobs. If it’s job stress, you may look for ways to improve your current work environment or find something outside of work that lets you blow off steam and reenergize.

What is Your Future Career Plan?
The path to your ultimate job may not be a direct route. There are a variety of ways to learn job skills, become educated, or build a network that can all lead up to the opportunity to land your dream job. When considering a job change, ask yourself if you’ve learned all you can from the position you are currently in. Starting a new job can mean starting over on the learning curve, so seek to understand if there are opportunities to grow and develop still within your current job. If your career path is important to you, take some time to clearly define what your ideal job is and what it would take to get there. Also, do your research. It’s important to be realistic about the job prospects in the specific industry you are interested in and to have an accurate view of what is required to be eligible for that position. 

What Message Will Your Job Hop Send?
Your combined work history will tell a story about you, and when you apply for future positions, that story may be the first thing a potential new employer sees. That being said, make sure you’ve considered the value in adding that new line to your resume before you decide to leave a job or accept a new job. It’s easier to explain to employer a series of job changes leading down a career path, versus a string of jobs you’ve been running away from.

What factors do you consider before making a job hop? Share them in the comments section below.

When you leave a workplace, you may also be leaving behind friends and mentors. With three out of four people putting in more than 40 hours a week at work, it’s likely that a few co-workers have turned into friends. Or, perhaps you’ve developed a strong mentorship with someone at your workplace. So what happens to that relationship when you leave your job? Here are two situations where the relationship may stick around without the tie of the workplace. 

Common Ground
Making friends as an adult can be hard. It’s not like college or high school when the typical weekend party, sports activities, or family gatherings fostered new friendships. If you’ve made a good friend at work, or created a circle of friends, you may not want to give that up so easily. This can be especially true if you’ve found common ground with a co-worker, such as being newly married, raising kids, or caring for senior parents. Support in handling these stages of life is invaluable, and it’s possible that your friendship outside of being co-workers can continue because of your commonalities.

To help continue your friendships after you’ve left a job, remember these few invaluable tips. Keep your focus on your friendship, and avoid discussing workplace gossip which can only end badly for both sides. Once a co-worker is longer a team member, the trials and celebrations of your workplace should really not be shared since they no longer work there. Likewise, if you’ve left a workplace, but have remained friends with a co-worker, don’t pressure them into telling you the details of the latest staff meeting. Of course, you might be reaching out for support in creating work/life balance or celebrating a promotion, but the daily grind should be left out. Additionally, announcing to your co-workers that you are spending time with a former employee isn’t necessary. Your personal life is private, and it’s not really important for you to broadcast who you are spending time with, whether they are former co-workers or not.

Professional Development
If you’ve found a great mentor at your current workplace, one of you leaving could be one of the best things to happen to your relationship. No longer will your mentorship be tainted with company politics. You can seek advice about the best direction for your career without having to worry about how that plan fits into your mutual workplace or aligns with company goals. Plus, it makes your mentor an objective third-party bringing fresh perspective to your situations. And, now that one of you is doing something new it may be a chance for you both to learn something new.

You may also want to stay in touch with past co-workers because you work in the same industry and if you’re in the same town, you’ll likely cross paths again. You don’t need to have frequent lunch dates or constant emails, but if there are a few former co-workers that you know are great networkers, keeping ahold of their contact information isn’t a bad thing. You never know when you might be searching for a job again, or looking for help with a project. Be careful not to burn any bridges you may need to cross later, you never know where life may take you.

How have you handled relationships when you’ve left a workplace, or had a friend leave your workplace?

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