As graduation ceremonies start rolling out across the country, graduates (and parents) are asking themselves: what’s next? This year’s graduates are entering the workforce in arguably one of the most challenging job markets since the COVID-19 pandemic. Combine this with the many former federal workers who are also suddenly looking for jobs, and it’s likely that this year’s college graduates will find themselves facing even fiercer competition.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
So what predicts who is underemployed versus employed out of college?
No matter who you are—someone looking for an internship, a new job, or even to keep a current job—the difference between staying employed or finding a new position often isn’t just about talent. It’s about who is advocating for you behind closed doors. When companies make tough decisions, they don’t just look at resumes; they rely on trusted voices to vouch for employees’ or job candidates’ value. Their decisions are swayed by sponsors, not mentors.
If you think “sponsorship” is just another word for “mentorship,” you’re not alone. But understanding the distinction—and harnessing it—could be the key to career survival and advancement.
The simple distinction between the two is this: Mentors talk to you; sponsors talk about you. To put it a different way, if mentorship is the fertilizer that makes plants grow faster and bigger, sponsorship is the greenhouse that creates the ideal environment for plants to grow.
The main difference between mentorship and sponsorship is who is being asked to change: the mentee or someone else (not the person we are trying to help). When we mentor people, we are trying to change them. Think of an influential adult with whom you had a relationship when you were a child. Maybe you had a trusted person who listened to you when you had trouble at school or home and gave you guidance on how to move forward. Perhaps you had a teacher who provided you with the nudge you needed when you weren’t sure if you would enjoy a new activity, and due to their encouragement, you discovered a love for dance, art, or history. Or a manager who nurtured you in your first job and gave you impactful feedback when you felt completely in over your head. This kind of support—coaching, feedback, advice, encouragement—all falls under the category of mentorship. When we mentor people, we are trying to affect their behavior, their attitudes, or their skills and abilities.
Read More: 4 Pieces of Advice Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You
Now think of a person who perhaps advocated for you to receive accommodations when you were having difficulties at school or at home. Maybe you had a teacher or two write recommendation letters for you when you applied to college. Perhaps you had a coach or orchestra teacher who made sure you were on the field or on the stage when a talent scout was present, making it so that the scout was able to see you perform. Or a manager who defended you in closed-door meetings, perhaps changing the narrative about why a project was not as successful as hoped. This kind of support—advocacy, visibility, protection—is sponsorship. Unlike mentorship, when we sponsor people, we are trying to affect how other people behave toward or think about our protégés.
Mentors act on mentees. Their task is to make mentees better, to make mentees ready and attractive candidates for great opportunities. Or, in the case of a challenging job market, to encourage and maintain the motivation of those who are fearful of losing their jobs or actively seeking job opportunities. But a mentee whom a mentor has helped to craft into an exceptional candidate can still be left out in the cold. This is where sponsors come in. Sponsors don’t try to make their proteges any different from what they already are. They believe that their proteges have something valuable to contribute, and what they do is act on audiences. Their task is to make audiences notice their protégé, to think well of them, to want to open the door and invite the protégé to come right on in, or keep the protégé at the party longer. In a competitive job market, the person who gets to stay or gets the job is the one who has someone actively championing them.
The issue facing many job seekers right now is that they might be feeling the impulse to hunker down, to circle the wagons, to keep their cards close to the chest. Soon-to-be grads might be willing to commiserate with close friends about how hard it is to find a job. They might even be willing to ask a few people with whom they feel comfortable to keep an eye out for open job postings for them. But the psychological threat they are feeling likely limits their ability to see the totality of the resources available to them via their network.
Read More: What I Learned When I Gained My Mentor’s Trust
For instance, many students often believe that their networks are relatively limited because they only think of their network as containing fellow students and job seekers. But they miss the fact that their networks, in fact, also contain the connections of their connections. Meaning, the networks of their parents, former high school teachers or college professors, or prior employers. These people’s networks are significantly different from those of students and are likely to contain information about opportunities that the job seeker would benefit from knowing about. If job seekers don’t think of these people and actively reach out to them, they forgo these opportunities.
When our contacts are similar to us, they typically have the same problems that we do and are seeking the same solutions that we are. For this reason, people whose networks are not sufficiently diverse are more likely to be able to offer us mentorship—our shared misery might very well make us feel better—but they aren’t in a position to sponsor us.
It’s important for soon-to-be graduates who are still looking for jobs to resist the urge to draw close and hunker down. Now is the time to take a careful look at your network and reach out to people for help, particularly if those people tend to spend time in different spaces than you do. And once you reach out, be forthcoming about your need for sponsorship, not (just) mentorship. And perhaps more importantly, for those who know and strongly admire soon-to-be graduates, consider the full spectrum of support you can give to them. Who would benefit from knowing this talented young person? What opportunities might be well-suited for them? And if you can’t think of the answer to either of those questions, your task is to find out. You can’t be their sponsor if you don’t know