If you had asked me during graduate school what the difference between an “advisor” and a “mentor” was, I would have said they were synonymous. My subsequent years in the private sector, and my sometimes rocky road getting there from academia, have shown me that it is usually unrealistic to expect your graduate advisor to also be a good mentor. There are several reasons why:
1. Conflict of Interest
When you look at business-sector-oriented advice about finding a mentor, the first thing mentioned is that you should not look to your boss. Ideally you want to find someone a few levels above you in a different division or (preferably) a different company. A good mentor is someone who takes an interest in your career without having an interest in it. Your boss (e.g. your advisor) has a strong interest in keeping you happily working in your current role, because that is how he or she gets the best return on the investment of training you. Few academics probably think about their students in such explicit terms of course, but the underlying conflict is there all the same. A true mentor should be someone who is only concerned with your side of the equation.
2. The Experience Gap
A graduate student’s advisor is almost always a research university professor. As I have discussed earlier, over 80% of graduate students will become something other than a research university professor. Therefore, there is a big mismatch between the career experience most advisors have and the working lives most of their students will lead.
3. Networking
While your is advisor is a great beachhead in the network of research university professors, you probably will not find a job in that network. Finding a mentor (or several) outside academia gives you an access point to another, more career pertinent, network.
If your advisor is indeed not you mentor, then how does one go about finding someone who will be? I cover that in a companion piece.