If you could sit down with your 22-year-old self for an hour, what would you say?
Would you tell them to stop worrying so much? Perhaps you’d tell them not to take every rejection personally. Maybe you’d even help them understand that the job that appears to define their entire career almost certainly will not.
There’s a chance you may offer practical advice. After all, networking and personal skills are extremely important, such as how to negotiate, how to keep in touch with the people you meet, how to ask good questions. How changing direction is not something to be feared, but something to be excited about.
Most of us learn these lessons eventually. But most of us also look back and wish wistfully that “eventually” had happened more quickly.
And for most of us, having a mentor at 22, fresh out of college, ready to attack the job market, could have made all the difference.
1. You Don't Have to Have Your Whole Career Figured Out
Realistically, it’s completely ridiculous at a younger age to believe that everyone else has a plan. And when you’re older, you do start to realize that no one really knows what they’re doing. But at 22, it can feel like you’re the only one who has no idea what’s going on.
When your friend finds their dream job, a brother gets into graduate school, and a former rival appears to be thriving on social media, it can truly feel like keeping up with the Joneses is an impossibility.
Meanwhile, you’re wondering whether you chose the right major, whether you’re qualified for the jobs you want, or whether everyone somehow received an instruction manual that you missed.
Here’s the advice you probably needed: your first job does not have to determine your entire career. And this is why becoming a mentor can be extremely valuable, both for you and the mentee you’re trying to talk to.
The old sports adage that “progress isn’t linear” applies to real-life jobs as well. People change industries, learn new skills, discover unexpected interests, and take opportunities they couldn’t have predicted when they were 22. An English major becomes an electrical engineer. A business major starts a career as a journalist. These things happen. And they happen all the time.
A mentor can help someone see that their current situation is a starting point, not a life sentence. Your start doesn’t determine your future, and the skills you learn in your first job can be broadly applicable to any number of jobs or industries you may encounter in the future.
2. Your Network Isn't Just a List of People You Know
“Your network is your worth.”
“Network more.”
“It’s all about who you know.”
This is advice almost everyone has heard. It’s also advice that can be frustratingly vague.
What is networking? It doesn’t have to mean walking into a room full of strangers and handing out business cards.
It can mean something as simple as staying in touch with a former coworker. Asking someone about how they got into their field. Joining a professional community. Sending a thoughtful message to someone whose career interests you.
One of the most important things you can tell your 22-year-old self is that networking isn’t just about what someone can do for you. Networking is a two-way street, where the person you’re engaging with may also expect to gain something from you.
And just as important: Relationships take time. Treating networking as a mere list of names is ineffective and not genuine. Crossing a name off a list isn’t relationship building. The person you meet today might become a colleague, collaborator, friend, mentor, or advocate years from now.
A mentor can help make this less intimidating by sharing what networking actually looked like in their own career. Which relationships mattered. How they approached people. How opportunities often came from places they didn’t expect.
3. You Don't Need to Know Everything Before You Ask for Help
When you feel like everyone knows what they’re doing and the world is leaving you behind, asking questions can feel stupid.
A mentor can help drill down one of the absolute hardest lessons for young people to learn early in a career: asking for help isn’t a sign that you’re unqualified.
Asking good questions is both a way to learn and a way to show other people you are interested in learning, engaging, and improving.
Research consistently shows that young people who have meaningful mentoring relationships benefit from support that goes well beyond simply receiving advice. Mentors can help young people solve problems, develop a sense of belonging, and better understand themselves.
That matters because career decisions are rarely just about resumes and job descriptions. A mentor can help someone understand this.
Asking the right questions, and, most important, being unafraid to ask them – is so important for progressing through an early career and building the confidence necessary for growth and improvement.
4. Your Career Is Going to Change. That's Okay.
You may have been told to “find your passion” and then build a career around it.
This is a nice idea. It’s not a realistic goal for most young people.
Talk to 100 people and it’s highly likely that most of them have become professionals in something different than they thought they would. Sure, there are doctors and lawyers and businesspeople who knew from the start what they wanted to do. But these are highly specialized fields that require years of schooling and essentially demand knowing oneself immediately before becoming a seasoned professional.
These professions make up a small proportion of jobs, and yet we still try to make young people believe that the first choice they make will define them forever.
Many mentors would say the following to their 22-year-old self: TRY THINGS.
Sometimes you discover what you care about by trying things. Sometimes your interests change. You might take job because you need one and discover a skill you never knew you had. This is why people with history majors become business owners and why people with medical degrees turn to social work. Your degree doesn’t necessarily define your passion and if you don’t branch out and try things, you may go your whole life missing out on something that was always there, hiding away.
Career development is an ongoing process rather than a single decision. Gallup describes it as a continuing process of aligning your strengths with your work, rather than simply choosing a job and sticking with it forever.
5. You Will Experience Setbacks
Your first professional setback at 22 years old can be overwhelming. It can feel like the world is falling down around you.
A mentor talking to their 22-year-old self might say something like this: Setbacks are inevitable, no matter how old you are, and rolling with the punches is a key part of any professional success story.
Social media can trick you into believing that everyone is perfect and flawless with no issues whatsoever. This is false. Even the people you see in the world succeeding and finding happiness have experienced setbacks.
Life isn’t fair. You will have hardships at work. You will have networking issues. You will feel inadequate. You will have bad professional relationships and outcomes. These are inevitable. So how you respond, and how well you steel yourself against the coming issues, is a key part of professional success and development.
Helping a 22-year-old understand this can seem almost impossible, but a seasoned professional looking to make a difference as a mentor can make a huge difference.
Final Thoughts: You Don't Have to Be a Perfect Mentor
Here’s something worth remembering if you’re considering becoming a mentor:
You don’t need to have all the answers.
You don’t need to be a CEO. You don’t need 30 years of experience. You don’t need to have followed a flawless career path.
In fact, your mistakes might be some of the most useful things you can share.
Maybe you know what it feels like to get rejected from jobs. Maybe you changed careers. Maybe you were the first person in your family to enter your industry. Maybe you learned the hard way that being good at your job isn’t the same thing as advocating for yourself.
Those experiences have value.
According to MENTOR, meaningful mentors are often distinguished by qualities such as listening carefully, accepting young people for who they are, being patient and taking them seriously.
You don’t have to have a perfect career story to help someone navigate theirs.
If you have career experience you wish you could pass on, someone is probably looking for exactly what you know.
At Wevise, mentors connect with people looking for guidance based on their needs, interests and goals. Whether you have years of experience or simply lessons you wish you’d learned sooner, your perspective could help someone take their next step with a little more confidence.
Be the career advice you wish someone had given you at 22.