Latest / The Career Mentor Podcast with Fexingo: Finding Mentors, Sponsors, and Career Advisors / How to Find a Mentor When Youre a Remote Worker
Transcript
- Lucas: If you work remotely, you've probably heard the old career advice: find a mentor, ask someone to coffee, walk the hallways. That advice is essentially useless when your hallway is a Slack channel. Luna: Totally. And I think a lot of remote workers feel this quiet panic — like, I know I need a mentor, but how do I even start when I never see anyone in person? Lucas: Exactly. So today I want to focus on one specific case that I think gives us a real framework. A junior product manager at a global tech company — let's call her Priya — joined the firm in early 2024, fully remote. She was assigned a 'buddy' in onboarding, but that buddy was a peer, not a mentor, and the relationship fizzled after a month. Luna: I've seen that happen a lot. The buddy system is often too informal and too short-lived to become real mentorship. Lucas: Right. So Priya did something that I think is really smart. She didn't just send a generic LinkedIn request to a senior director. She spent two weeks reading through the company's internal Slack history — the product team channels, the design reviews, the post-mortems. She identified a director named Sarah who consistently gave the most thoughtful feedback on others' work. Luna: So she did her homework first. That's key — she observed before she asked. Lucas: Exactly. Then she sent Sarah a direct message on Slack. Not a long essay — something like: 'Hi Sarah, I've been following the design review threads for the last few weeks, and I really admire how you frame trade-offs without dismissing anyone's idea. I'm a new PM on the team, and I'd love to learn from your approach. Would you be open to a 20-minute call sometime this month?' Luna: That's a great template. She's specific, she's showing she's done the work, and she's making the ask small — twenty minutes, not a standing monthly commitment. Lucas: And Sarah said yes. That first call turned into a quarterly mentorship that lasted over a year. But here's the part I really want to highlight: Priya didn't ask for a mentor. She asked for a single conversation. The mentorship grew organically from there. Luna: That's such a smart reframe. Because the word 'mentor' can feel heavy — it implies a long-term commitment. Most senior people are happy to help once, but they're wary of signing up for something indefinite. Lucas: Right. So strategy one: observe first, then make a small, specific ask. Strategy two is something I call the 'virtual shadow day.' Instead of asking for advice, ask to observe. Say, 'Can I sit in on your next client call? I'll just listen.' That's even lower pressure, and you learn a ton from watching how someone thinks in real time. Luna: I love that. And it's actually more actionable than a generic coffee chat. You're not asking them to prepare anything — you're just asking to be a fly on the wall. Lucas: Exactly. And strategy three: don't limit yourself to your own company. Remote work means geographic boundaries don't matter. You can find mentors in other time zones, other industries, even other countries. Priya could have found Sarah even if Sarah worked for a different company — the key is that she found someone whose thinking she admired, regardless of org chart. Luna: That's freeing, but it also means you have to be more intentional. You can't rely on serendipity of the office kitchen. Lucas: Right. And that's the real takeaway: remote mentorship is possible, but it requires deliberate action. You have to be the one to observe, to reach out, and to frame the ask in a way that's easy for the other person to say yes to. Luna: I want to add one more thing: follow-up. After that first call, Priya sent a thank-you note that included one specific thing she learned and how she planned to apply it. That's what turned a one-off into a recurring relationship. Lucas: Absolutely. Show that you're coachable. That's the signal that says, 'I'm worth investing in.' And on that note — and I say this because the show itself is a kind of career resource — a small number of listeners make this podcast possible every month. We keep the show ad-free and focused on practical advice like this, and it's funded entirely by listeners who chip in at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a model I really appreciate. No sponsor reads, no ads — just honest career conversations. And it works because a few people choose to support it. Lucas: Exactly. And that support is what lets us drill into specific cases like Priya's rather than repeating generic advice. So if the show has helped you think through a career move or decision, that's the place — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Now, back to the practical side: what about when the person says no? Because that will happen. Luna: It definitely will. And that's okay. The key is to not take it personally and to have a pipeline of potential mentors. Priya actually reached out to three people and two said yes. That's a 66 percent success rate, which is great. Lucas: Right. And if someone says no, you can ask for a referral. 'Do you know anyone else who might be open to a quick chat?' That's completely fair. Or you can simply wait six months and try again with a different ask. Luna: One thing I want to emphasize: consistency matters more than frequency. A twenty-minute call every quarter is better than a two-hour lunch once. Remote relationships thrive on small, regular touchpoints. Lucas: That's a great point. And we should also talk about the role of managers. If you're a manager of a remote team, you can explicitly carve out time for your team members to shadow other senior folks. That's a structural solution that makes mentorship easier. Luna: Yes. And if you're not a manager, you can suggest it. Say, 'I'd love to set up a cross-team shadow program. Can I pilot it?' That shows initiative and solves a systemic gap. Lucas: To wrap this up, I think the core insight is that remote mentorship isn't about finding a wise sage who bestows advice from on high. It's about finding specific people whose work you admire, making a low-stakes ask, and proving you're worth their time by acting on what you learn. Luna: And it doesn't have to be formal. Some of the best mentoring I've seen happens in a shared document — someone comments on your draft, you reply with a question, and a thread becomes a conversation. Lucas: That's a great way to think about it. So the challenge for listeners this week: identify one person — inside or outside your company — whose work you respect. Send them a short, specific message asking for a single conversation. Not a mentor. Just a chat. See what happens. Luna: And if you do, let us know how it goes. We might feature your story in a future episode. Lucas: Good idea. Until next time, keep building those relationships — even if it's through a screen.