{"id":10579,"date":"2016-08-26T09:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/?p=10579"},"modified":"2016-08-25T15:12:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T14:12:24","slug":"you-need-a-mentor-or-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2016\/08\/26\/you-need-a-mentor-or-three\/","title":{"rendered":"You need a mentor or three"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Choosing a mentor (or mentors) is one of the most important decisions facing an early-career scientist.<\/h2>\n<p>It is crucial to your professional success to have one or more strong and knowledgeable advocates and guides in your court. And you can\u2019t leave this up to chance or a random meet.<em><\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7217\" style=\"width: 3656px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a class=\"wpn-image-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/files\/2015\/08\/istock_thinkstock_mentor.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7217\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7217 wpn-image\" title=\"mentoring-naturejobs-blog\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/files\/2015\/08\/istock_thinkstock_mentor.jpg\" alt=\"mentoring-naturejobs-blog\" width=\"3646\" height=\"2734\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/files\/2015\/08\/istock_thinkstock_mentor.jpg 3646w, https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/files\/2015\/08\/istock_thinkstock_mentor-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/files\/2015\/08\/istock_thinkstock_mentor-1024x767.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 3646px) 100vw, 3646px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7217\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">{credit}Istockphoto\/ThinkStock{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Obviously, you can\u2019t just go to a mentor store, look at the label and choose the one that seems best. You need to make sure you have the right fit \u2013 but how? Here are some ways to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/naturejobs\/science\/articles\/10.1038\/nj7086-964a\">avoid a making a bad choice<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What makes the mentor-mentee relationship most useful and productive? Sometimes it\u2019s as basic as finding the \u2018right\u2019 principal investigator and lab. Here\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/naturejobs\/science\/articles\/10.1038\/nj7353-667a\">what to look for<\/a>, what you should expect and be getting from the PI and how to make your job search easier. And here are a few more tips on <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2013\/08\/29\/mentoring-more-than-just-a-pair-of-hands\">getting the most out of your mentee experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You shouldn\u2019t necessarily limit your search to the \u2018right\u2019 PI, though. But whom should you approach? A group of academic researchers offers <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2014\/11\/06\/how-important-is-it-to-have-a-mentor-in-your-academic-career\/\">advice about appropriate targets <\/a>during a recent Naturejobs Career Expo. Members of an Expo panel this year provide <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2016\/06\/21\/how-did-you-cultivate-mentors\/\">more helpful tips<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And a final bit of pep-talk for your travails: Even the best and most brilliant don\u2019t even consider going it alone. Nobel laureates have much to say about how t<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2015\/08\/04\/mentoring-before-they-were-laureates\/\">heir mentors helped them early on<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is crucial to your professional success to have one or more strong and knowledgeable advocates and guides in your court. And you can\u2019t leave this up to chance or a random meet.&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2016\/08\/26\/you-need-a-mentor-or-three#more-10579\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2016\/08\/26\/you-need-a-mentor-or-three\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88283,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,289,323,185,195,187,188],"tags":[2709531,3636033,713,1021983,3636035,1119,3115289],"class_list":["post-10579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia-2","category-ask-the-expert","category-career-paths","category-collaboration-2","category-faculty-2","category-people-management-2","category-relationships","tag-early-career","tag-mentee","tag-mentoring","tag-pi","tag-relationship","tag-researcher","tag-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}