Internal vs. external mentorship

Question 1

How do external vs internal mentorship programs differ (ie: someone identifying a personal mentor from their network, vs. joining a mentoring program at their company)?

Answer 1

Don’t want to conflate formal vs. informal being more associated with internal vs. external, and that’s another divide.
Not to knock anyone that’s got an internal mentorship program - that’s great - but there’s lots of reasons why someone might want to reach out to a mentor outside their company.

I don’t really have any experience with formalized internal mentorship programs, so don’t want to speak out of turn about them. Maybe they can be particularly helpful when tactical advice regarding proprietary or company-specific information needs to be shared, and which isn’t as transferable to somewhere else?

Question 2

Do external vs. internal mentors serve the same purpose? Why would someone pick one over the other?

Answer 2

I’m sure there’s utility to an internal mentorship due to a shared understanding of the ‘tactical’ circumstances.

But the benefit of an external mentor is they can feel safer to confide in, as they’re less likely to be perceived as being in a position to evaluate your work or potential. And likewise the mentor may not feel as free to express some of their opinions or plans that may not have company approval. Also if you get all your advice from internal to your company, you may be setting yourself up for some huge blind spots.

I think for all of those reasons I’d tend to prefer external.