Finding a Mentor in Your Industry After College

Loved connecting with Keven Jimenez, a young Latino still in undergrad but already determined to be in this industry, who reached out to talk through some thoughtful questions. 🙌🏽 I always get excited when someone’s already taking the right steps, doing the work, staying curious, and just needing a little guidance to help navigate the early stages of their journey. Some gems from our conversation that I think others entering financial services might find helpful: ✨ “What orgs should I get involved with?” - FPA NexGen: A community within the Financial Planning Association focused on supporting students and early-career professionals in the planning profession. – SER Summit for Latin@s in FinServ: A powerful annual gathering of Latino financial professionals designed to build community, visibility, and collaboration across the industry. – ALPFA Los Angeles Chapter: One of the largest associations for Latino professionals, with national and local chapters, student opportunities, and access to a wide network across finance and business. ✨ “What designations can help me stand out early on?” The SIE and Series 65 are great entry points to show initiative and interest before you’re eligible for the CFP®. The CFP® is widely respected among RIAs and is a strong long term goal, but focus first on getting real world experience. You’ll learn so much about what excites you and how you want to show up in this work. Programs like Amplified Planning's Externship are amazing. ✨ “Any other designations or advice on niches?” -There are HUNDREDS of designations out there, and it’s easy to feel pressure to collect them all, but don’t rush. 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭, 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫. You might think you’re into investments and find out you love working with retirees, small biz owners, or divorce planning instead. -Same goes for niches: don’t pigeonhole yourself right out of college. Explore broadly, learn from mentors, and let your client style and ideal niche develop naturally as you grow. ✨ And one more thing: 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭. Be curious. Reach out. Learn from others. That warm network you build now could be the door to a future mentor, job opportunity, or client referral. There’s no one “right” way to do this, especially as a Latino in the industry. Many of us are navigating brand new territory with few paths to follow. These are just resources I hope can help the next person. Because if I knew even half of this in college? That would've been a game-changer. 😂 I didn’t learn most of this until two years after graduating, after I’d already changed careers. All to say: there’s no one path and no perfect answer. Just keep going. 🚶🏽♀️ #LatinosInFinance #FinancialPlanning #FirstGen #CFP #NextGenAdvisors #MentorshipMatters #RepresentationMatters #LatinaVoices

In the past week I’ve had two different coffee meet-ups with recent grads University of St. Thomas (#ROLLTOMS) and Metro State University who have really impressed me. These two particular young people were curious yet bold, prepared (they both had questions ready) and ambitious. And this week, already, I find myself going out of my way to help them (which I love to do!). Anyway, these two young people that reached out for coffee were actually out of the norm, sadly. I get a lot of LinkedIn invites from young people at St. Thomas and Winona State (because of my connections to both), but also other local universities. And, more times than not, that’s the only time I hear from these young people. And that’s a big mistake. The LinkedIn invite is just the first little part of starting a relationship with a more experienced person in your field. There are several important steps you should take beyond sending that invite that can help you build and nurture a great network. So, recent grads (and even young people 1-3 years removed from college), after you send that initial LinkedIn invite, here’s what I would suggest: 1 – Send a short follow-up DM thanking the person for connecting. You could also reference a recent LinkedIn post in your DM. This will show gratitude and demonstrate that you’re listening and paying attention to their conversations. 2 – Make the coffee ask. I know this is hard, but people from your alma mater (in my case Winona St., but also St. Thomas where I teach), will rarely say no. At the very least, ask for a 15-30 minute Zoom coffee. But, the preference is for the in-person coffee. 3 – Nail the coffee meeting. Prepare and show up with questions to ask. Show up early. Ask if/how there’s anything you can do to help. Follow-up with a prompt thank you email/note. Overall, just make sure you're making an A+ first impression. 4 – Be a frequent liker/commenter on the his/her posts. Believe me, people definitely notice the frequent likers/commenters on their posts. Helps you stay top-of-mind with that person should opportunities come up. 5 – Go out of your way to look for opportunities to help that person. You might think, “how can I help someone with 10-20 years experience when I’m just starting?” You might be surprised! What about business referrals? What about intros to other young people? What about sending them events or articles you see/read they might be interested. Don’t underestimate the value you bring to other people—at any age! You follow those steps after sending those LinkedIn invites and I can almost guarantee you’re going to get noticed and remembered. And that’s really what matters when it comes to the hidden job market.

You decide your mentors. Asking someone you admire to be your mentor can seem very daunting. It's a tough task to approach someone and ask them to bestow all their knowledge on to you. There are certain things you can do to make it a lot less awkward. Seasoned professionals are usually very busy so asking them directly to mentor you is probably not the best idea. Beyond busy its a tough proposition on knowing what exactly are you looking for. Is it a request for job referral, industry connect, etc.. A good way to approach is by putting in some work around what your want out of the mentor relationship. Do some research on the person, or the industry, or the company and then follow that up with a specific request or question. I've always taken a second look or followed up with people who have a specific ask. For example. Let's say you're looking to change industry with your next opportunity. And someone in your near network is someone you look up to and would love to have a connect with them and hopefully can learn from. A good way to approach that person would be to see what they post on LinkedIn, what they like, what their journey has been up to that point ( we're not cyber stalking ) and then reach out with something like "Hi, highly impressed with your work on XYZ.. I am interesting in moving into [industry] and I've done all these things to prepare my self. Given your successes in [industry] I would love to get your perspective on how [list a specific thing] works. I've tried researching it but love to know from someone who's actually doing it. An approach like that will work way better than "I was wondering if you can mentor me?" Don't get discouraged and keep learning.