---
title: "How to Find a Great Mentor: 10 Criteria to Score | 1:1 mentoring"
description: "How to find a mentor worth paying for: 10 criteria, each scored 0-10, with red flags and the questions to ask. Works on coaches too. Run it on me."
url: "https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-find-a-great-mentor/"
lang: "en"
image: "https://www.marian.coach/_astro/speaker-01.DdstSGf2_Z2mheME.jpg"
---

The mentor-shopping advice you’ll find on page one of Google says: check the chemistry, clarify expectations, meet regularly. [Forbes even has five C’s for it](https://www.forbes.com/sites/hillennevins/2024/06/13/how-to-choose-an-executive-coach-remember-the-5-cs/). All true, none sufficient. Chemistry is how bad mentors get hired: the pleasant conversation is exactly what they’re selling.

![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-06.CFmbsSxo_XDdsL.webp)

The intro call is where criteria 2 and 4 get scored live, not the pitch deck.

So score instead of feeling. Ten criteria, 0 to 10 points each, 100 total. Run every candidate through it, mentor or coach. Run it on me too; I put the links where you can check.

## The 10 criteria

**1\. Seat time.** Have they held the role you’re growing into, at a comparable scale? A zero means they read about it; a 10 means they lived it, recently enough that their playbook still matches today’s tooling and org sizes. This is the one criterion that’s mentor-specific, a [coach plays a different game](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-vs-coaching/) and is exempt.

**2\. Specific situations, on demand.** Ask: “Tell me three situations like mine you have personally handled.” 0 = frameworks and adjectives. 10 = three concrete stories with what broke and what fixed it, told in under five minutes. No question I know filters more candidates than this one.

**3\. Answers, not only questions.** If every answer comes back as another question, that’s a 0. A 10 means you leave the intro call with one move you can run tomorrow. Good mentors also coach when the moment calls for it, but they can always produce an answer.

**4\. Willingness to disagree with you.** 0 = they validate everything, you feel great, nothing changes. 10 = the first conversation already contained one thing you didn’t want to hear. You’re not paying for agreement, that you can get at home for free.

**5\. Pattern volume.** How many people like you have they worked with? You don’t want to be the experiment (0); you want your situation to match dozens they’ve seen (10). One warning here: volume without seat time just repeats the criterion-1 failure at scale, because watching 500 people struggle from the outside isn’t the same as operating. My number is [3,400+ sessions with 300+ leaders](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-leadership-statistics/), and you should demand the equivalent from anyone.

**6\. Transparent pricing.** 0 = “let’s discuss your goals first” and the price appears on a call, sized to your budget. A public number before you ever speak is the 10. Mine is [on the pricing page](https://www.marian.coach/pricing/), including the guarantee: a session you rate below 7/10 isn’t billed.

**7\. A milestone by session 4-6.** An open-ended journey with progress measured in feelings is a 0. A named, checkable outcome inside the first two months is a 10. Across my mentees the first big milestone typically lands in 4 to 6 sessions, so a candidate should be able to name what yours would be.

**8\. An exit design.** Ask: “When does this end?” Visible confusion, or “development never ends”, scores 0. A straight answer about making themselves unnecessary scores 10.

**9\. Checkable references.** 0 = anonymous logos and initials. 10 = named people with faces and titles you can look up, ideally people you can reach. Mine are [here, with names](https://www.marian.coach/testimonials/), and the average session rating behind them is 9.17/10.

**10\. Knows their own edges.** 0 = takes every topic, including the ones that belong to a therapist. 10 = says “that is not my lane” out loud and refers you. Burnout that needs clinical help, legal trouble, personal crises: a great mentor names the boundary before you cross it.

## Scoring

| Total | Verdict |
| --- | --- |
| 80-100 | Hire. This is rarer than it should be. |
| 60-79 | Take a trial session with a concrete situation and re-score. |
| Below 60 | Keep looking. A mediocre mentor costs more than no mentor, because you stop searching. |

Three rules while you score. First, score criteria 2 and 4 live, in the intro call: ignore what they claim, watch whether they push back and get specific. Second, when you’re vetting a coach, drop criterion 1 and score out of 90; the bands become 72 and 54. Third, for mentors no criterion compensates for a criterion 1 below 5.

## Where this list comes from

I built the engineering org at [Mews](https://www.mews.com/) through Series C, from 8 teams to 80, and I’ve been full-time mentoring since 2019. The criteria are reverse-engineered from the other direction too: [52% of my mentees](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-leadership-statistics/) arrive in their first leadership role, and the ones who were burned before describe, almost every one of them, the same three failures: no seat time, no milestone, no end.

Since I told you to run it on me: on criterion 1 my score depends on your seat. I held VPE, not public-company CTO, so if you run a 2,000-person org, my seat time is partial and I say so on the intro call. That sentence is what a 10 on criterion 10 sounds like.

![Marian Kamenistak in a 1:1 mentoring session.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/mentoring-07.CaYSBaNE_X1W5R.webp)

Scoring works the same whether you’re vetting me or anyone else.

If you’re vetting an AI-specific mentor, the trap list is different and I wrote it separately: [how to find an AI mentor](https://www.marian.coach/blog/how-to-find-an-ai-mentor/).

And if you want to run the scorecard live on someone: my [intro session is free](https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-mentor/), bring the checklist. Candidates who suggest that make it easy for you, which is itself a data point.

## Frequently asked

How do I find a mentor?+

Shortlist 2-3 candidates who have held the role you are growing into, take their intro calls (good ones are free), and score each against hard criteria: seat time, specific situations like yours, willingness to disagree with you, transparent pricing, and a milestone by session 4-6. Hire the highest score, not the candidate you enjoyed talking to most.

What makes a good mentor?+

Three things separate great mentors from expensive conversation: they held your seat and carry the scars, they can retell specific situations like yours on demand, and they tell you what you don't want to hear. Certifications and follower counts predict none of it.

What questions should I ask a potential mentor or coach?+

Ask for three concrete situations like yours they have personally handled, what they would push back on in your current plan, when the collaboration ends, and what the price is. A candidate who dodges any of these four just scored themselves.

Should I look for a mentor or a coach?+

Depends on the problem. Someone who has held your seat and hands you tested answers under a deadline, that's a mentor; clarity, confidence and direction work belongs to a coach. Most of these 10 criteria apply to both, only the seat-time criterion is mentor-specific.

How much should a mentor cost?+

Published rate collections put executive-level coaching at $200 to $600+ per hour in the US; the sourced breakdown lives in the executive-coaching cost guide on this site. For comparison, my own public price is 430 EUR per session, with a below-7/10-not-billed guarantee. Whatever the number, a candidate who hides it until a discovery call fails the transparency criterion.

1:1 mentoring

## Ready to move this from advice to action?

1:1 mentoring for engineering leaders. 300+ mentees since 2019. Pay-as-you-go or a 6-session pack. First intro is free.

[Book a free 30-min intro →](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring/)

## Read next

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    ### Mentoring vs Coaching: Which One You Need
    
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    22 July 2026 · By Marian
    
    Read →
    
    ](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-vs-coaching/)
-   [
    
    ### Should I Become a Team Lead? A 6-Dimension Answer
    
    Six dimensions predict whether the team lead role will fit you, drawn from 3,400+ mentoring sessions. Take the 3-minute test, get a straight verdict.
    
    22 July 2026 · By Marian
    
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    ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/should-i-become-a-team-lead/)
-   [
    
    ### How to Become a VP of Engineering: The Three Gaps
    
    A VP of Engineering wrote me about his stuck senior EM. The email defines the EM-to-VPE gap better than any career guide. Three gaps, with fixes.
    
    21 July 2026 · By Marian
    
    Read →
    
    ](https://www.marian.coach/blog/engineering-manager-to-vp-of-engineering/)

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