The Forgotten Value of Mentoring Junior Staff

Learning and embracing fresh perspectives flows both ways

I was a junior copywriter once. I sucked fairly badly for longer than I should have. But despite my suckery, an agency took a chance on me, paid me peanuts, hazed me mildly and taught me to be better. Even if I didn’t realize it then, I was making them better, too. This tradeoff is important and getting depressingly rare. We need to fix that.

But first, let’s acknowledge all the legit reasons why we’re bringing on less juniors these days. Timelines are too compressed to allow for teaching the inexperienced. Remote work makes Zoom-based mentorship hard and lame. Juniors still cost money that eat up our increasingly infinitesimal margins. AI does our grunt work for free. Plus, the rigors of onboarding.

Did I miss anything? Don’t care. Here are the better reasons you should ignore all those reasons and engage more juniors…

Juniors add sweet to our sour

All of us mid-to-senior level folks can’t help but be a bit jaded with the current state of our industry. This work has gotten harder, faster and more thankless. We remember the “good old days” and grump levels are rising. But I’ve noticed that with the mere presence of ambitious juniors who truly want to be there, it’s a lot harder for veteran staffers to stay so salty. Enthusiasm and ambition is contagious. Juniors make us all grow up while also reminding us who we were before we learned too much. It’s almost magical.

Teaching juniors teaches the teachers

Mentoring takes hours we don’t have, but it’s worth it. The act of teaching forces us to clearly articulate the things that have become instinctive. That clarity helps us better understand and improve our process. There’s plenty of research that shows mentoring increases job satisfaction for mentors and can reduce our burnout. When someone is learning from you, the work becomes generational.

Juniors make us cooler, bruh

Agencies justify writing big checks for trend reports. Well, juniors are walking trend reports! They help us keep up with cultural shifts, platform-best practices and what is or isn’t currently cringe. Trend reports don’t come with visceral reactions.

Juniors aren’t asking for riches. Or commitment

The job market ain’t a fun place for recent grads right now. AI is sucking up entry-level positions and even internships are grossly competitive. It’s brutal and sad. Our recent experience has been that juniors aren’t looking for fat checks or even full-time jobs. They are happy to get training in the field they’re passionate about, build their skills and bulk up the experience section of their resume. This can start as a low-commitment, low-risk exercise and grow from there. It’s a win-win.

We all started as an inconvenient experiment. We took someone’s precious time, asked too many questions and made messes. If we want an industry with a future, we need to invest more in people who don’t know what they’re doing yet.

That very inexperience makes the rest of us better.