Why is it important to have a mentor in a data science career?
By: Sharan Kumar Ravindran
Tags: Data Science, Mentorship, Office Hours

Why is it important to have a mentor in a data science career?

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

A mentor is like a compass, would help you in reaching your destination on both professional and personal fronts. The concept of mentoring is common among the leadership and top executive teams but recently it is getting popularity across all levels in a range of different professional careers. In this article, I am going to explain the importance of having a mentor, especially in a data science career, also about finding the best mentor aligned to your goals, and making sure the mentorship is successful. If you have a preference to video format check this — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va53EDK7vgI&t

Importance of having a mentor

A mentor can play a very critical role in both the personal and professional growth of the mentee. Some of the advantages of having a mentor in a data science career are,

Learning that comes with it

If you are someone who is very early in your data science career then it is often easy to get overwhelmed by the number of choices on the topics or field to be learned. You might be tempted to get into the details of different fields within data science at different time, for example, seeing someone working on an interesting image recognition problem might be tempting to start working on it, or maybe your colleague’s chatbot project might tempt you to build something similar or your friend who did Masters degree ending up with an offer in a FAANG company could tempt to do higher studies as well. So the point I am trying to convey here it is easy to get into this loop of juggling between different things and ending up not focusing on anything. Here, having a mentor will be very helpful. If you have a mentor, he/she would be able to guide you on making sure that you take one step at a time in the right direction. Depending upon your interest and goals your mentor would be able to guide you better.

On the other hand, your mentor will have a greater exposure based on working on a variety of data science projects and there would have been a lot of learning along the way and it will be a great opportunity to learn from the experience of the mentor.

Ability to expand your network

A mentor can be very helpful in expanding your professional network. The more experience the mentor has the better he/she would be able to help you in expanding your professional network. Having a good professional network would open up a lot of opportunities. You would have access to a lot of job opportunities and also to the best practices across the industry

A mentor is a trusted adviser

When you are confused about making a decision a mentor would be able to help you with his suggestion which would be based on their experience and exposure. As well as you would be able to bounce some of your ideas and get feedback. A good mentor can also help you in understanding your strengths and weakness and can help you in making better use of your strengths and also in improving your skill set in areas where improvement is required

Build a better CV

I have come across many people complaining that there are not able to get shortlisted and they all generally blame their lack of experience in data science. While trying to understand the real reason for them not getting shortlisted I got to know that their resume was not exactly reflecting them. So no matter the effort they have put in learning data science without a good resume they don’t end up with a job offer. This is enough to frustrate them to stop pursuing a career in data science. Having a mentor would be very helpful here.

Your mentor will be helpful in shaping your resume. A good resume is really important to get shortlisted for the roles you are applying for. Your mentor would be able to share some templates that are impressive and can help you by reviewing and providing feedback.

Introspection that comes along

A mentor would ask a lot of questions to get a better understanding of yourself and your goals such as,

What are your short-term goals?

What are your long term goals?

How do you rate your data science skills?

What are your strengths and weakness?

What will be a challenge to achieve your goal?

What help would you require from a mentor?

Some of the above questions require a lot of thinking and while responding to these types of questions you would end up doing a lot of introspection and this might help in better understanding your strengths, weakness, and your real objective.

Accountability

This is very critical for a successful mentee-mentor relationship. Without a mentor, you are not accountable for any of your plans and commitments but having a mentor would make you more accountable because if an experienced professional is choosing to dedicate time to help you grow in your career it will definitely make you more accountable and responsible. This will not only help you in the learning but also as a professional

Finding a mentor

It is very important to find the right and trustworthy mentor. You will be relying on this person at key instances of your career so it is important to choose the right person. It is also OK to have more than one person as your mentor but try to avoid having too many as it might lead to more confusion. To choose the right mentor, you need to first spend some time understanding your goals and what you would want to do in 5 years or few years down your professional career and then try to find people who are already in that position and see if they would be willing to be your mentor. Places like Linkedin, Medium, Kaggle, and other platforms for data scientists could be a good place for you to find a mentor.

On identifying the right person it is important to have coffee catch-up and build a good rapport with the person to understand if the person might be the right mentor for you. If you feel you are not able to connect with the person even after a few meetings then it is strongly advisable to choose someone else. Below are steps that can be useful in finding the right mentor,

Understand your goals and where you want to reach in your career in 5–10 years

Find people who are already in the position where you would want to reach in your 5–10 years

Organize a catch-up to understand the person better

If you find them to be a good mentor for you then Ask

If they are interested then let them know about your goals and ask if they would be able to help and contribute to your growth

Key to success from a mentee point of view

From the mentee point of view to ensure a positive outcome it is important to have the following,

Being clear about your goals from this mentoring relationship

Choose a mentor whose professional experience aligns with your goals

Ensure that you stick to your commitments

Understand that your mentors time a valuable and be on time for the meetings

Agree on a meeting schedule and send out invites in advance

Be clear about the help you need from your mentor

Ask your mentor to introduce you to his network

Keep your mentor updated about your progress

Key to success from the mentor point of view

From the mentor point of view to ensure a successful mentorship you need to ensure

Understand the kind of help your mentee is requesting and check if you would be able to meet the expectation of your mentee

Empathize from the position of the mentee

Support the mentee on their learning

Dedicate time for conversations with the mentee

Keep a check on how your mentee is tracking on the goals

As a mentor your role will be very critical to the mentee and hence it is very important to first evaluate if you are ready for this commitment. Also, remember that the mentee is not the only person get benefited here as a mentor you will be able to build your leadership skills

Tips for a successful mentorship

Below are few tips to ensure a successful mentorship

Set the expectations very clear and work towards it

Keep a journal to track the conversations, actions, and outcomes

Schedule the meeting in advance and stick to the commitments.

Keep in regular touch, mentee to update on their progress and mentor to provide feedback and guide

Things change, your goals would also change, and hence it is important to remember that the mentor relationship is not a life long one when its time it’s OK to let your mentor know and move on to someone more aligned to your current goals

About me

I am a Data Science professional with over 10 years of experience and I have authored 2 books in data science, they are available for sale here. I have a YouTube channel where I teach and talk about various data science concepts. If interested, subscribe to my channel below.

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