The role of mentorship in accelerating your career

Mentorship is one of the fastest, most reliable ways to accelerate a professional career. Not because mentors give you shortcuts, but because they compress learning, expand your network, and help you avoid invisible mistakes that cost lot of your efforts. If you want to move faster in your field, whether climbing technical ladders, shifting into leadership, or changing industries – the right mentor relationship can change the steepness of your career curve.

I speak from experience – I’ve been a mentee and a mentor in multiple programs across firms such as EPAM Systems and Julius Baer. Some relationships were formal, structured programs, others were ad hoc, informal mentoring that turned into long-term career friendships. Each taught me different lessons about how to get practical value out of mentorship – both when you’re the one asking and when you’re the one answering.

You live in a learning economy. Employers are more likely to keep people who can grow. Employees want roles that offer real career development. Across Europe, almost half of adults of working age participated in some form of education or training in the last 12 months, it’s a clear sign that continuous learning is mainstream. Yet most adult learning is non-formal and job-related, which is exactly where mentorship delivers most value – personal guidance, on-the-job context, and tailored feedback you can’t get from an online course.¹

It’s quite simple – learning opportunities are a retention lever and a career accelerator. When those learning opportunities include mentoring and coaching, the effects multiply. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2024 found that companies with strong learning cultures show higher retention, greater internal mobility, and better promotion pipelines – outcomes mentorship helps create.²

Sourced from ³

• Participation in adult learning – In the EU roughly 46–47% of adults aged 25–64 took part in formal or non-formal education and training in 2022 – companies and institutions are watching closely because it is central to employability and skills goals. Most of that activity is job-related,
• Mentoring is recognised at EU level – European institutions and regional bodies are explicitly calling for better recognition, quality and financing of mentoring across the Union — for social inclusion, employability and career development. That shows mentoring is increasingly seen as public policy infrastructure, not just an HR perk,⁴
• Organisation-level evidence – Corporate research and practitioner studies show companies with intentional learning and mentoring practices get higher retention, internal mobility and stronger management – but not all mentoring programs work, design and participation matter. Harvard Business Review’s recent analyses stress that mentoring programs deliver most when they are well structured and sometimes mandatory to include those who need them most.

Think of mentorship as a multiplier for three things you need to progress.

Mentorship type	Best used for	Key benefits	When to choose it
Traditional one-to-one (senior → junior)	Role guidance, career pathing, sponsorship	Personalised feedback, access to insider knowledge, promotion readiness	When you seek clear direction from someone who has already achieved your target role
Peer mentoring / cohort mentoring	Skill swaps, accountability, problem solving	Builds psychological safety, collaboration and wellbeing	When you need mutual growth and support rather than hierarchy
Reverse mentoring	Digital skills, innovation, DEI awareness	Improves digital literacy and inclusion at senior levels; boosts visibility of junior staff	When juniors hold emerging expertise or diverse perspective senior staff need
Group or speed mentoring	Exposure to multiple perspectives quickly	Broad learning, fast feedback, network building	When you explore multiple career directions or seek chemistry with potential long-term mentors
Blended (formal program + informal follow-ups)	Combining structure and long-term relationships	Sustainable growth, authentic relationships, measurable outcomes	When you want both accountability and organic connection

If you want mentorship to speed your career, treat it like a product you manage. Here’s a step-by-step approach I use and teach.

Define what success looks like in 3–6 months. Example: “Lead the next sprint planning for the cross-border team” or “get on the shortlist for senior engineer interviews.”. Mentors are most effective when there’s a clear, time-bound objective.

Choose someone who has achieved the outcome you want, not just someone senior. Look for credibility, availability and understanding.

Start with a 30-minute kickoff – share your goal, a short background (2 minutes), and propose a cadence (monthly 45 minutes or biweekly 30 minutes). Include 2–3 agenda items per meeting. Obviously, in case there is formal program and guidelines try to follow them and adjust whenever needed and acceptable.

Mentoring is leverage, its outcome depends on how well you execute advice. Send short updates, ask for quick feedback and show progress.

Be explicit – “I need feedback on promotion readiness” versus “I need introductions into product management.”

When a mentor helps you get an outcome – a promotion, a new role, a project – follow up with the result and thank them. That makes future support likely and yours work relation lasting.

Mentoring accelerates the mentor’s career as well. You learn coaching, sharpen leadership skills, and often gain recognition internally. Follow rules below if you decide to mentor.

• Set expectations early – clarify availability and what mentee outcomes you’re comfortable supporting,
• Ask more questions than give answers – your role is to help the mentee weigh options and set priorities,
• Give specific, actionable feedback – “You need to show impact” is vague, “For the next presentation, add two KPIs and a 30-second outcome slide” is usable,
• Protect your time – mentoring is meant to be of a high-outcome, nonetheless remember to use timeboxing.

Harvard Business Review and practitioner research show mentors often end up more promotable and more engaged, but program design matters – optional, unfocused programs often fail to reach the people who need mentoring most.⁷

For managers and learning and development teams, designing a mentoring framework that delivers measurable results requires structure, alignment, and intent. Start by connecting mentoring directly to business outcomes such as retention, internal mobility, and leadership pipeline development. LinkedIn Learning reports that organisations with strong learning cultures consistently outperform others in these areas.

Matching mentors and mentees deliberately is critical – focus on complementary skills and goals rather than job titles. Provide training for both mentors and mentees to set clear expectations, teach effective feedback models. Use data and short feedback cycles to measure retention and promotion impact, and where possible, run pilot programs to refine your approach. Harvard Business Review research shows that programs with mandatory or incentivised participation outperform voluntary ones by avoiding self-selection bias. Finally, ensure that mentorship includes real sponsorship pathways – introductions, advocacy, and visibility opportunities – so it drives genuine career advancement rather than remaining a purely developmental exercise.

• Unclear goals – many mentoring relationships fail because neither party knows what “success” looks like. Fix with introducing desired 3-month outcomes,
• Mismatched expectations – set cadence and responsibilities at kickoff,
• Manager resistance – clarify that mentoring is not a replacement for line manager support, it is complementary. Use L&D to align all parties,
• Program by checkbox – having a program is not the same as achieving outcomes. Measurement and iteration matter. HBR warns that many programs exist but fail to benefit a majority, the fix is proper design and accountability.

From my own path at companies like EPAM Systems and Julius Baer:

These are the practical steps you can replicate – set a target, ask for a small, testable favor, and show progress.

Mentorship gives you faster learning, better visibility and network leverage. For organisations, mentoring tied to learning cultures produces measurable business outcomes like higher retention, more internal mobility and a stronger management pipeline. For individuals, mentorship is the difference between learning by trial and learning by guided practice. In both cases the return is real but it requires structure, measurement and commitment.

If you’re serious about career acceleration, pick one mentor or one peer group this quarter, set a concrete goal, and run the first three meetings with a structure. The momentum you build in three months compounds and that’s where career trajectories change.

Sources

1. EC, “Adult learning – participants” ↩︎
2. LinkedIn, “Workplace Learning Report” ↩︎
3. Zippia, “Mentoring statistics” ↩︎
4. EurLex, “Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions — Mentoring: a powerful and meaningful tool for the Europe of tomorrow” ↩︎
5. Eric, “Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education” ↩︎
6. Equal4Europe, “Toolkit for setting-up mentoring programs” ↩︎
7. HBR, “Why Your Mentoring Program Should Be Mandatory” ↩︎