One of the smartest moves any professional can make in their career is to find a mentor. A mentor can be a coworker, a professional organization member for your area of expertise, or a retired member of your profession. While academia comes with built-in advisors as you study, people in the private industry may need to work a bit harder and do some searching to find someone willing to serve as a mentor. For the private sector, especially those notorious for heavy workloads like computer programming and engineering, a retired mentor may be best since they won’t have to balance you with a high workload.

Mentors can be truly invaluable for the expertise they can provide young and developing professionals. They truly have “been there” and “done that,” and they can help navigate you through the sometimes complicated world of professional work and development. They can help you avoid both major pitfalls and minor mistakes within your field, as well as helping you see opportunities that you might not have noticed otherwise. Mentors can also help you wrap your head around responsibly using the earnings from your field, especially if they made the most of their working incomes through savings and investments. Finding a mentor can save, or even make you, a ton of money.