Are you in search of an older, more experienced, wizened female mentor, but don’t know where to start? You’re not alone! Studies show that most female employees under 35 are reluctant to approach potential female mentors, particularly intimidatingly experienced sorceresses who are in the habit of hexing younger women. But rest assured: Any witch worth her warts should be more than willing to help an ambitious newbie, without even asking for her hair or nails in return!
But finding this precious guidance doesn’t have to be all toil and trouble. In fact, your local coven is full of witch professionals just waiting to become your new mentor! Follow these steps, and soon you’ll have the magic-practicing mentor you seek.
Decide which witch you’re looking for.
It’s important to go into your mentor search with a clear goal in mind. Do you want a female mentor who can teach you how to turn Chad from HR into a spotted frog? Or one who can help you conjure up an enchanting personal brand? Write a list of qualities you’re looking for in a mentor, place it on your hearth, and light it on fire. When the ashes swirl into the shape of a ram, you’ll know that the Elders have heard your call. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want!
Attend a networking event at your local coven.
Most covens hold low-key gatherings to help women like you network with potential mentors. Don’t let the older witch’s dizzying sulfuric smell, high-pitched cackling, or cobweb-covered power suits intimidate you—she was just like you once, staying late at the office trying to impress her manager. Grab a goblet of pig’s blood and join in on the fun! Soon you’ll be dancing naked around the sacrificial bonfire and they’ll see you for the go-getting ambitious career woman you are!
Approach your potential mentor humbly, bearing the eye of a newt and the tongue of a frog.
Seek out your witch at a quiet time, ideally NOT when she’s busy delivering prophecies from a trancelike state. Approach her with a compliment and a concrete mentee request. For example: “I admire the confidence with which you summon the Black Flames of hell. Can I pick your brain sometime about effective spells for managing mid-level accounting teams?” She’ll either say yes, or turn you into a fruit fly. What do you have to lose? You love fruit!
Show your mentor how grateful you are, ideally by promising her your first-born child.
If you expect your mentor to reveal her best hex for increasing quarterly dividends, you’d better be willing to make a blood oath promising her your first-born child. Sure, you’ll dread the day she snatches your precious babe from his crib, and disappears, cackling, into the night sky. But nobody said balancing your work-life commitments would be easy!
Build a vast pentagram of witches you can really count on.
Once you get the hang of this mentorship thing, you can focus on building a network of mentors whom you can summon with the Southern Wind when you need advice about email signoffs. These witches will be there to celebrate your promotions, curse he who laid you off, and just shoot the shit at the local cemetery. It takes a village to curse a village!
The bonds you form with your mentor can last thousands of years, or at least until your mentor is scorched by a foreign wizard’s staff. And when that dark day comes, maybe you will be tasked with commanding the coven, and you’ll be the one being timidly approached by a novice witch.
