Week 10: Ask 3 Mentors for Feedback on Your Career Direction

Some fun pics of our new Outliers Books in Eugene!  We’ve been open 3 weeks and it’s going really well, although hugely steep learning curve for Kel (the main person). But our community has really shown up for us!

OK, that’s enough fun for today! Now to the hard stuff.

This week we have to look at an uncomfortable truth: you are not the best judge of your own career trajectory.

I know—you’ve been told to “trust your gut,” to “follow your passion,” to “listen to your inner voice.” But the academic job market (and frankly, most professional paths) is not a place where intuition alone will carry you. It is structured, hierarchical, and, whether we like it or not, interpreted by other people. Which means your future depends, in part, on how others see you.

So this week’s task is simple, but not easy: ask three mentors for honest feedback on your career direction.

Not one. Not your favorite. Not the one who already agrees with you. Not the “nice advisor”  who tells you what you want to hear because they are conflict averse or invested in toxic positivity.

Three, because one mentor gives you a perspective but three give you a pattern.

Of course everyone is biased—toward their field, their generation, their own regrets, or their investment in you. But when you ask three different people, you start to see convergence:

• Are they all subtly steering you away from academia?
• Are they all emphasizing a gap in your record?
• Are they all surprised by the path you say you want?

That’s data. That’s usable.

You might ask who counts as a mentor.

Well first of all, not just your advisor or PI. In fact, if your advisor/PI is your only mentor, that’s already a problem. I am always writing about how you need a team behind you (here’s one post that covers some of that ground), because different faculty members and admins and friends and colleagues have access to widely divergent resources and capacities to share. No one person can cover everything you need.

In this case, you’re looking for variation:

• Someone in your discipline who knows the field intimately
• Someone outside your discipline who is job hunt savvy/can assess broader skills
• Someone in a role you might want (academic, alt-ac, industry, nonprofit, etc.)

Finding these three will probably require you to be proactive. You have to reach out with a carefully worded email. I am a fan of carefully worded emails. I spent a consultation appointment yesterday with a fairly new graduate student who needed explaining in how to reach out to a potential mentor outside their own institution. I dictated an email right on the spot!

Anyway, the key is to ask and precisely, and courteously, without being vague or annoying.  As I explained to my grad student client yesterday, never send an email that says something like:

“Can I get your thoughts on X?”

That is lazy, and in demonstrating no effort on your part, will likely, in these pressed times, garner no response at all.

Instead, you need to proactively provide the framing and parameters, while also articulating your own status and goals. In short, briefly state your current position, outline the direction you are considering, ask specific questions

For example:

“I’d like to ask for a moment of your time for some career advice. As you know, I’m currently a postdoc in X, and I’ve been working on XX with the goal of XX. Right now though, with the contraction of academic hiring, and defunding of federal agencies that support X (KK: this is just an example of the kind of context you want to provide) I’m at the point of trying to decide whether to continue pursuing tenure-track positions or pivot toward policy work. Because I really value your opinion, and I know you’ve advised many postdocs in both directions, I’d like to request some time with you for a conversation about how competitive I seem for TT roles? And do you see skills I should be building if I move into policy? Do you see any gaps I should prioritize filling, for one or both roles?”  I’ve attached my CV to this email. I can meet at your convenience.”

You’ve made it easy for them to help you because you’ve narrowed the parameters to a manageable size.

And by the way, the email is just to set up a live meeting (zoom is ok if necessary). Because this needs back and forth, and unpacking, and followup questions!

The next stage is to listen, really listen, to their answers. Remember, you are not listening for validation. You are listening for truth.

Pay attention to:

• Hesitations (“Well… it’s a tough market…”)
• Redirections (“Have you thought about…?”)
• Emphases (“You really need more X”)
• Surprises (“Oh—I didn’t realize you wanted that”)

And most importantly, pay attention to what repeats across all three conversations because that repetition is your signal.

Now, there’s a high chance you won’t like what you hear. If all three mentors tell you your current trajectory is unrealistic, or misaligned, or underdeveloped, your first instinct will be to dismiss them: “They don’t get my work.”, “They’re out of touch.” “They’re too negative.”

But please do recall that the entire Professor Is In enterprise has been based on confronting the denial that (until recently at least) has permeated academia, and facing the hard truths of our imploding economy, your own record, and steps actually required to have any hope of attaining secure employment.

So… claiming that three independent people are all wrong in exactly the same way is most likely a flavor of denial.

It is less likely than your self-assessment/grasp of conditions of hiring being inaccurate

No matter what you hear in this exercise, of course, it doesn’t mean you abandon your goals. It means you get a strategy: strengthen weak areas, broaden your options, reframe your timeline, and yes—sometimes, reconsider your path. If you already had a strategy, then check that it aligns with the feedback you’re getting.

The exercise is not about permission, but rather calibration. You are aligning your self-perception with external reality, because careers are not built in isolation. They are negotiated—through hiring committees, collaborators, institutions, and networks.

Learning how you are seen is not a betrayal of your authenticity; it is a prerequisite for making informed decisions.

Your Task This Week:

1. Identify three mentors (not all from the same context)
2. Reach out with a courteous and respectful but direct, focused, and specific request
3. Have the conversations (reminder: actually talk—don’t just email)
4. Write down what you hear immediately afterward
5. Look for patterns across all three
6. Create/adjust your strategy

No overthinking. No delaying. No waiting until you “feel ready.”

You are ready.

You just need to ask.