College Grads: Sponsorship, Not Just Mentorship, Is Key to Landing a Job
As graduation season kicks off nationwide, graduates (and their parents) are contemplating their next steps. This year’s graduates are entering a particularly tough job market, perhaps the most challenging since the COVID-19 pandemic. The presence of former federal employees also seeking new roles intensifies the competition for these graduates.
What determines whether a college graduate finds suitable employment or ends up underemployed?
Regardless of your current situation—seeking an internship, a new job, or trying to retain your existing one—talent alone isn’t always enough to secure or maintain employment. Having someone championing you behind the scenes is crucial. Companies making critical decisions consider more than just resumes; they rely on the recommendations of trusted individuals who can vouch for the value of employees or candidates. Sponsors, not mentors, influence these decisions.
If you believe “sponsorship” is simply another term for “mentorship,” you’re not alone. However, grasping the distinction and leveraging it effectively can be vital for career survival and progression.
The fundamental difference lies here: Mentors advise you directly, while sponsors advocate for you when you’re not in the room. In other words, if mentorship is the fertilizer that helps plants grow quicker and bigger, sponsorship is the greenhouse that creates the ideal growing conditions.
The key difference between mentorship and sponsorship is who is being asked to change: is it the mentee, or someone else? When we mentor someone, we are trying to change *them*. Think back to an influential adult in your childhood. Perhaps you had someone to listen when you were struggling at school or home and offer guidance. Maybe a teacher encouraged you to try something new, leading you to discover a passion for dance, art, or history. Or a manager provided support and feedback early in your career when you felt overwhelmed. This support—coaching, feedback, advice, encouragement—is mentorship. When we mentor, we aim to influence behavior, attitudes, or skills.
Now, consider someone who advocated for you to receive accommodations when you were having difficulties at school or at home. Perhaps you had teachers who wrote letters of recommendation for college. Maybe a coach or music teacher ensured you were visible to talent scouts. Or a manager defended you in private meetings, reframing a project’s lack of success. This support—advocacy, visibility, protection—is sponsorship. Unlike mentorship, sponsorship involves influencing how others perceive or treat our protégés.
Mentors act on mentees. Their role is to improve mentees, preparing them for great opportunities. In a tough job market, they encourage and motivate those fearing job loss or actively searching for jobs. However, even a well-prepared mentee can be overlooked. This is where sponsors are crucial. Sponsors don’t try to change their proteges. They believe in their value and work to influence others’ perceptions. Their role is to make audiences notice their protégé, think highly of them, and create opportunities for them to succeed or remain involved. In a competitive job market, the person who stays or gets the job has someone actively supporting them.
Many job seekers are currently inclined to withdraw, protect themselves, and be secretive. Graduates may discuss their job search struggles with close friends and ask a few trusted contacts to watch for openings. However, the stress they’re experiencing likely limits their awareness of the full range of resources available through their network.
For example, students often underestimate their network, considering it limited to fellow students and job seekers. They overlook connections through their parents, former teachers, or previous employers. These individuals have different networks that likely contain information about valuable opportunities. Ignoring these contacts means missing out on potential advantages.
When our contacts are similar to us, they often face the same problems and seek the same solutions. Therefore, those with limited network diversity may find mentorship helpful—shared struggles can be comforting—but lack the sponsorship needed for advancement.
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.