Peers with varied background and skills are often just as useful as mentors. Some places to look:
1. There are Slack communities, mailing lists, and possibly even subreddits and IRC channels that have decent, supportive people. Varies a lot by size and culture, but sometimes you can find a group of people who will provide advice. Here's a list of Slacks: http://www.slacklist.info/
2. If there isn't one that's relevant to you, start a Slack for e.g. former coworkers. It seems like Slacks work best if started by people who know each other, but worst case you can also try starting your own that is topic-based.
3. Become a contributor to a relevant open source project, ideally one with a code review process.
While I know it is not the answer you are looking for, I would say you can't – they find you.
This is just my experience. I put a lot of stock in the importance of having a "mentor" early in my career. And I lamented the lack of being able to find one.
I eventually changed gears – different job in a different field – and found someone I consider to be a mentor. The most interesting part is that instead of this person being someone I want to be exactly like or even someone that I share a great deal in common with, I just find myself trying to do what I think they would do in situations I am faced with. It's the way they handle themselves, communicate with others, make decisions, etc.
So I would just say be involved in as many things as possible and be open-minded. Ideally you will share a lot in common and be in the same field. But I don't think that has to be the case.
I'm currently mentoring a college student (I've been in the workforce for 5 years) and one of the issues I have is that I don't know what the mentee really wants / needs. So i'd recommend you figure out what information you want from a mentor, then hit up the social networks to find someone who can provide the information you want. Then once you establish a baseline, you create a two way street of value.
I like to meet with people for coffee, so messaging people you look up to (try linkedin) is always a good idea. Ask if you can meet for coffee to get to know them, and over time, a mentoring relationship might develop. As some other people have said, you can't force a mentoring relationship, they form naturally.
People just love to give advice, however you ask you will find.
I actively searched: friends of friends, networking groups, customers, government funding schemes (via Business Link in UK), paid people but I don't feel I ever found somebody I would class as a mentor. I took value from all these people but they were never somebody whom I relied on beyond a couple of get-togethers.
I still think it is very much worth searching. If you can find somebody who is a great fit for you it can transform your perspective, I have seen this happen to others.
Those who want to mentor are usually very up for it. Myself, I love sharing what I've learned over the years and I'm not afraid to let people know that. I usually end up helping people through work and I'm currently helping youths through a municipal project where I meet a lot of computer interested kids.
Here we have IT meet-ups, where we discuss certain topics. These don't happen often enough, in my opinion, and I'm looking for more like this. This is great for meeting like minded people and maybe your mentor will be among them. If something like this don't exist near you, I would recommend trying to get something like this going.
Of course, you can find communities online as well. I feel it's harder to find interesting people to cling on to online because it takes a certain type of person to sit down and actually explain stuff through text and they usually rub me the wrong way.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 15.0 ms ] threadYou can find a new, more relevant job.
Peers with varied background and skills are often just as useful as mentors. Some places to look:
1. There are Slack communities, mailing lists, and possibly even subreddits and IRC channels that have decent, supportive people. Varies a lot by size and culture, but sometimes you can find a group of people who will provide advice. Here's a list of Slacks: http://www.slacklist.info/
2. If there isn't one that's relevant to you, start a Slack for e.g. former coworkers. It seems like Slacks work best if started by people who know each other, but worst case you can also try starting your own that is topic-based.
3. Become a contributor to a relevant open source project, ideally one with a code review process.
If you can't find a mentor, here's some more suggestions: https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/04/17/learning-without-a-m...
This is just my experience. I put a lot of stock in the importance of having a "mentor" early in my career. And I lamented the lack of being able to find one.
I eventually changed gears – different job in a different field – and found someone I consider to be a mentor. The most interesting part is that instead of this person being someone I want to be exactly like or even someone that I share a great deal in common with, I just find myself trying to do what I think they would do in situations I am faced with. It's the way they handle themselves, communicate with others, make decisions, etc.
So I would just say be involved in as many things as possible and be open-minded. Ideally you will share a lot in common and be in the same field. But I don't think that has to be the case.
I actively searched: friends of friends, networking groups, customers, government funding schemes (via Business Link in UK), paid people but I don't feel I ever found somebody I would class as a mentor. I took value from all these people but they were never somebody whom I relied on beyond a couple of get-togethers.
I still think it is very much worth searching. If you can find somebody who is a great fit for you it can transform your perspective, I have seen this happen to others.
Here we have IT meet-ups, where we discuss certain topics. These don't happen often enough, in my opinion, and I'm looking for more like this. This is great for meeting like minded people and maybe your mentor will be among them. If something like this don't exist near you, I would recommend trying to get something like this going.
Of course, you can find communities online as well. I feel it's harder to find interesting people to cling on to online because it takes a certain type of person to sit down and actually explain stuff through text and they usually rub me the wrong way.