When I graduated college in 1991 with dual degrees in psychology and marketing, I really did not know what I was going to do with my career. I got a job in marketing, which turns out was really a sales job, and learned very quickly that I did not like working in sales. It was at that job, however, that I met one of my most important mentors, Dr. Marvin McMillan. He was the vice president of human resources and an I-O psychologist. He had served on a board at a college in Saint Louis with my mother, and he generously let a 22-year old kid right out of college spend time learning about what he did professionally. Over the course of that year, Dr. McMillan taught me a lot about I-O psychology and guided me into the field where I have been practicing for over 25 years.
Mentoring has been an important part of career progress as long as there have been professions, with senior practitioners and artisans teaching junior ones skills and the ins and outs of a profession. Although mentoring is formalized in some professions, it has historically not been a central part of I-O psychology beyond graduate school, which is precisely when most of us need some career guidance.
The diversity of I-O psychology careers can make finding a path overwhelming. Graduates are faced with options that include talent analytics, external consulting, academia, training and development, and human resources just to start. Once they start down a career path, there is so much to learn and explore, yet most of us end up doing it on our own. Some of us are the only I-O psychologist where we work, leaving us to get mentoring from colleagues from outside the profession who do not always know the career paths we have available. Others may work with other psychologists but still do not get the mentoring we might want due to heavy demands on our time where meeting with a mentor feels like a luxury.
SIOP Practitioner Mentoring Program
The SIOP Practitioner Mentoring Program aims to meet this need for early to midcareer I-O psychologists. We are concluding the fifth consecutive year of offering mentoring to practitioners, and to date have had 105 pairs complete the 10-month program (there are 15 pairs in the 2025 cohort who will be wrapping up their mentoring experience in December). The program is a traditional one-on-one mentoring program, pairing seasoned psychologists with early to midcareer professionals with a focus on career growth and development for the protégés. The feedback from those who have completed the program has been very encouraging, and the 2024 cohort had net promoter scores (NPS) of 71 for mentors and 65 for protégés. There are several factors that have contributed to the success of the program:
- Consistent steering committee membership. The members of the steering committee (which has had 3-4 members over the first 5 years) participate on the committee for at least 2 years of the program. Also, members are staggered so there is always at least one continuing member who can mentor the ones joining the committee.
- One-on-one partnerships. The predecessor to the current incarnation was a group mentoring program that ran from 2010-2017, where one mentor would lead meetings for a group of protégés. These discussion-based sessions were valuable to the participants but lacked the personalized guidance that comes with a more traditional approach.
- Protégé driven program. Previous program feedback suggested that the mentors often drove all of the sessions and selecting the topics. The engagement from the protégés was inconsistent, which led to the program coming to an end. The current program asks protégés to “take the lead” with their mentors to foster ownership with the protégés
- Loose structure. The program provides structure for the participants in the form of meeting agendas and goal-setting resources to get started but leaves the logistics of how the pairs will meet to the mentors and protégés themselves. The feedback we have gotten is that it is enough structure to help get started but not too much where it would start to feel intrusive.
- Application based. To ensure we have protégés will be fully engaged, we have an application that asks prospective protégés to articulate their career goals, what they hope to learn from a mentor, and what they would want in an ideal mentor. The application helps the steering committee make thoughtful matches to ensure the mentors can meet the goals of the protégés.
The program focuses more on career development than technical skill building or networking, and protégés set goals for the program like this goal from a current participant: “Understand what my career path could look like and what opportunities I should be prioritizing. Increase my ability to position myself as a trusted expert and future leader. Build deeper connections with my colleagues and professional network.”
The program has not been perfect, and the steering committee members have learned a lot during the way. The biggest challenge for the committee is protégés who stop reaching out to their mentors early in the process. Although the application is meant to ensure only protégés who are willing to put in the time to meet with a mentor are paired, some protégés still end up “ghosting” their mentors.
That said, the feedback from those who do complete the program has been great. Below are testimonials from two participants who competed the 2024 program:
I have enjoyed this experience tremendously. I have gained an IO friend/colleague who’s not from my grad school program or a past job and that’s a nice change! This program is an excellent way to build relationships with other IOs just for the connection. My mentee taught me so much! I believe I helped her too so it was a positive and productive experience for both of us. We look forward to staying in touch and hopefully meeting in person at a future conference. ~ Marie (mentor)
My experience with the SIOP Practitioner Mentoring Program has been amazing! My mentor is supportive and kind. I feel seen, heard, and validated. Our calls sometimes run longer than we plan because there is so much to discuss. I appreciate all of those who worked to make this program possible – Thank you!! ~ Nicole (protégé)
If you are interested in applying for the 2026 cohort, applications will open up for both mentors and protégés in January 2026 with applications due by January 23rd. Application is only open to full practitioner members (not current students): https://www.siop.org/education/for-professionals/professional-practice/practitioner-mentoring-program/. The program kicks off with a training session in March and runs through December. There is a midpoint meeting held in August to get the participants together for knowledge sharing, and a closeout meeting in December. If you have any questions about the program, feel free to contact me.
I’d also like to thank the committee members who have served with me over the 5 years of the program:
- Antoinette Kohlman
- Liz Pavese
- Kathy Bittner
- Mengqiao (MQ) Liu
- Elena Auer
- Nchopia Nwokoma
- Nicole Ennen
