[geeks] How best to find a mentor?

[Joshua Boyd]

On 12/30/24 17:00, Nathan Raymond via geeks wrote:
> Thanks for replying! For most of my entire career, I've been managed 
> by people less technical than myself. I've rarely asked someone senior 
> to me for advice. Past co-workers I know are at or below my current 
> career position, or in different enough fields that I don't think they 
> can provide the guidance I'm looking for. Right now I'm in a 
> fast-growing startup, so there is no formalized career path 
> progression. The founders are understandably busy managing the growth 
> of the company (fundraising, strategic partnerships, etc.). I want to 
> ensure my communication with them is efficient, clear and to the point 
> so I don't waste their time and can at the right opportunity 
> advocate for myself, and carve the best career path for me and the 
> company.
>
> I went to a well regarded prep school with alumni resources I've never 
> tried to tap... I wonder if I should try to leverage those connections?

So, it sounds like you don't need a technical mentor, but you need one 
for setting goals and maybe soft skills. Investigating the alumni 
resources sounds like a great idea. Maybe I should take that advise as well.

An additional suggestion for clear an efficient, clear and to the point 
communication is to consider using an LLM assistant.

The above is what I wrote.  I asked both a locally running Phi4 and 
OpenAI's GPT-o1 (not locally) the following: "Is my reply clear and 
concise?  How could it be improved?  Thank you."

Here is what Phi-4 recommends:

 > It sounds like what you need is guidance in goal setting and soft 
skills, rather than technical
 > mentoring. Leveraging alumni resources is an excellent idea; they 
might provide valuable
 > connections and advice. I also suggest considering using an AI 
assistant to help streamline your
 > communication—ensuring it's efficient and effective.

Here is what GPT-o1 recommends:
 > It sounds like you’re looking for guidance on goal-setting and soft 
skills, rather than technical help.
 > Exploring your alumni network is a great idea—perhaps I should do the 
same. Also, consider an LLM
 > assistant to keep communication clear and efficient.

I would say that the recommendations are both efficient. I was 
specifically looking for it to optimize the words "clear an efficient, 
clear and to the point communication", which also had grammar problems, 
and both certainly did that.

I don't really like Phi4's "Leveraging alumni resources is an excellent 
idea". I would hate to use the word leveraging about people, and I 
wouldn't go so far as to use excellent.  But, just because an LLM 
suggested it, doesn't mean I can't further change it.  GPT-o1 was more 
concise, but it sounds less like something I would write. Sounding like 
me isn't always as important as clear communication though.

Instead of asking it to make revisions, I could have just asked for 
feedback.  I will do that when I want to double check that the text I 
wrote is doing what I want.

One specific point of note, part of efficient communication is timely 
communication, and I struggle with that.  Using voice dictation to dump 
my thoughts in a manner that I would never email (for instance, 
completely out of order, or extremely negative or maybe angry) and then 
asking the LLM to do a first draft is tremendously helpful in getting 
started.