We’re approaching the end of 2025, and the market for jobs for new graduates has never been worse in my professional career. As I interact with more students who are in this situation, I’m impressed with the ones who will come up to me, start a conversation, and seek to network face to face. AI-driven software that generates resumes and cover letters makes it almost impossible for someone to get through the noise of the electronic approach to job hunting that has been effective over the past 25 years or so. It’s never been more important for new graduates to establish human, mentoring connections.

So it’s great that these people are seeking to find mentors and other professional connections who can advocate for them in this market. But many people do it wrong. Here’s my advice on properly setting up mutually beneficial professional connections with folks who are ahead of you in their careers:

Understand Their Goals

The most impactful thing you can do is to focus yourself on understanding their goals and their problems. It’s so easy to think that they must have no problems, because they’re successful! The reality is the more successful people are, the larger their problems become.

I’m surprised that it’s so rare for people to really try to understand what my goals are. The conversations usually involve either asking for advice on things that they need help with, or asking what I do and expressing interest in what I do. But people are rarely curious about the problems I have that I need help solving. And honestly, these problems are the things that I’m truly engaged with and need help with! Yes, I can give advice about what to learn and what to do, but that advice isn’t nearly as valuable to either of us than if we interacted at a deeper level about the true unknowns I’m facing. My unknowns at the moment are:

• We’ve spent over a year full time on our software. It’s high quality. It does a thing that’s great. But I need to validate that with more people. I need some active and honest feedback from a lot of people right now.
• I need to know how people are approaching how to make professional human connections more meaningful, and how they honestly think about my framing of my solution to that problem. I need help with messaging and engagement.
• When people know that we’ve quit our jobs to pursue this, it’s been very difficult to get their honest feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. I need people who can break through that understood politeness and help us take the actions we need to succeed.

When an eager, early career person takes the time to engage me at this level, I'm so delighted and they get a much more meaningful and substantial interaction with me. They signal to me that they’re curious, always wanting to understand the landscape of business issues, and that they’re willing to be vulnerable about their curiosity in the event that they have no idea how to contribute.

This conversation doesn’t have to sound forced, either. It can come about through natural curiosity. “Hi Michael, your startup idea sounds interesting. I’m curious, who are your target markets?” “Oh cool, what’s your biggest challenge with that market?” And then you wait for information that leads you to believe that your unique skillset overlaps with their current need and share that.

Alignment is Rare

The second piece of advice I give people about finding the connections who will advocate for you is that not everyone is the right person for the task. Many people aren’t on the same path as you are; find someone who is on a similar path.

One time years ago as I was becoming a senior engineer, I took my Senior Director out for lunch for career advice. I was asking him what moves I should make to succeed, and I quickly realized that he had no idea what moves I should make, because he became a leader through the marketing and product management path. He didn’t know what it meant to be a successful engineering leader. I didn’t take into consideration that his advice may not be applicable to me.

Valuable advocates and mentors have goals and problems you can contribute to and are several steps ahead of you (but not miles ahead). A lot of times, they’re closer than you think. If you’re graduating, they are someone who is within their first five years of their career who graduated from the same school as you did, with a similar major. Perhaps the CEO of a local company in your field isn’t the right person because that person took your steps within an entirely different context over two decades ago.

Give First Then Take Action

This is what truly sets people apart. Who gets curious about my problems and is meaningfully aligned with them? And then who takes action and wants to help? Those are the people who establish a mutually beneficial relationship. They give first, and that gift creates positive outcomes.

I love talking to students at networking events. They’re in such an exciting time of life. I am left so puzzled, however, when they find out that I’m making software for students to help them get a better job, and they choose to use that interaction to ask me for my advice on which programming language to learn. I love talking about programming languages. I love Rust, and we’ll proceed to have a great conversation where I offer lots of advice! But there could be so much more if they would say, “Wow, that’s an interesting thing you’re working on; I’ll try it out and give you some feedback next week.” I’ll remember that person. I’ll seek to make that person successful, because they have the right, give-first, action-oriented attitude.

And don’t get me wrong, I live this struggle myself. We’re working hard to create a successful business, and I also host a lunch once a month with other technical leaders, many of whom would benefit from our software! But I put that out of my mind, seek to understand other people’s goals, seek to align with them, and to give to them what will help them first. I focus on taking action wherever I can. That takes intentionality and focus, but it’s so worth it.

Conclusion

So when you’re finding yourself talking to someone who is further along from you and could potentially help you with your goals, seek first to understand their goals, find alignment, and take action. Curiosity is a great indicator of empathy and strategic thinking. If you do this, you’ll eventually discover a half dozen or so valuable relationships that will serve as stakeholders in your career and will be rooting for your success.