Mentorship in the eDiscovery Market Place

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: . Published: 2011-09-29 11:00:41  It seems like there is always some kind of job movement in the eDiscovery marketplace.  It seems I’m constantly getting updates on LinkedIn and Plaxo on the status of someone’s new role at a company.  This last weekend’s batch of LinkedIn updates I received inspired me to write up a post on mentorship in the eDiscovery industry in the current job market.The last few years were tough on many industries and the eDiscovery space had its hard times as well.  For about a year, it seemed like I was getting an email or phone call everyday from someone in my network that was unhappy with their job situation or had been let go from their company.  It was difficult to hear these stories especially because I really wanted to help these people and was not in a position to do so.  The good news is that I built up quite an extensive backlog of resumes.I have always been a firm believer in the idea of “Mentorship and Growth” as a practice.  In all my previous roles, those were the cornerstones of all the conversations with my employees and team members.  Mentorship is something not typically seen in our industry because of the immediate need for results which leads to a “burn and churn” attitude.  So I always put an emphasis on letting people know that I’m investing in their career on a day to day basis.  I found that was the best way to get people to work hard for you while at the same time committing me to support them on their career paths.I was lucky enough to have an excellent mentor (and fellow Hoosier), Mark Kindy, during my tenure at Merrill Corporation.  Mark was always available to me to discuss professional and personal issues while at the same time guiding my development at a large company which was a new experience for me.  Mark is currently at Alverez & Marsal handling some very complex projects and I hear he is continuing to be a strong leader mentoring his team there.Now that the market has become better over the past few months, it’s been very interesting to see where people are landing.  I have worked with dozens if not hundreds of people in the industry, and feel honored to see some of my colleagues continuing their successful career paths for other companies.I recently saw a press release from Planet Data on Rachel DiPrima joining their project management team.  Rachel was a strong project manager on the Lextranet review application.  I’m sure she will continue her growth and excellent customer service record with Planet Data.Many of my former Renew Data colleagues have recently moved to some impressive roles.  Dan Junk recently joined Scarab as the Senior eDiscovery Consultant.  Jake Frazier landed a role at IBM as an Information Governance Consultant.  David Jett was the first project manager I hired at Renew from the early days and I have been mentoring and tracking his career for some time. David is now a Client Director for Autonomy’s Introspect team.There are many other people I’ve worked with over the years with successful careers to put into one article.  To all of you, I want to extend my appreciation for the hard work and commitment over the years and it’s wonderful to see your continued success.The main point I want to make is that mentorship, even in a volatile marketplace, is important.  You never know when your advice will help launch someone on a path to incredible success.  It’s a wonderful feeling getting an email or phone call from a mentee that they are excited about their new role and give you positive feedback.   Overall, it’s a win/win situation.