When Mentoring Backfires: Study Finds Career Support Can Push New Hires Out the Door

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Deng, H., Guan, Y., Zhou, X., Li, Y., Cai, D., Li, N., & Liu, B. (2024). The “double-edged sword” effects of career support mentoring on newcomer turnover: How and when it helps or hurts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 109(7), 1094–1114. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001143

Introduction

Organizations pair newcomers with mentors partly to keep them, and the prevailing view holds that career support reduces turnover. Deng et al. (2024) challenge that view. In an era of boundaryless careers, they argue, the skills and contacts a mentor helps build are portable. They propose two competing pathways. In the first, newcomers invest in their current organization, come to see themselves as valued there, and stay. In the second, they manage their careers outward, come to see themselves as marketable elsewhere, and leave. The authors predicted that whether the mentor was the newcomer’s supervisor would determine which pathway won out.

Methods

The team ran two studies at a large Chinese technology company whose HR department assigned each new hire a volunteer senior mentor. In Study 1, 495 newcomers completed surveys at two, four, and eight months after joining. Company records showed who had left by month twelve. Study 2 surveyed 193 different newcomers over three waves, adding measures of expected advancement inside and outside the company. Its outcome was intention to quit rather than actual departures.

Results

Career support pulls in both directions, and who provides it matters. Career support predicted more internal effort, such as seeking information and building relationships, which raised newcomers’ sense of their value to the company and lowered their odds of leaving. It also predicted more outward career management, such as networking outside the firm, which raised their sense of marketability elsewhere and increased their odds of leaving. The pathway toward leaving appeared only when the mentor was not the newcomer’s supervisor. Study 2 replicated this pattern. Having a supervisor as mentor, however, did not strengthen the pathway toward staying.

Discussion

The authors argue that the common assumption that protégés repay support with loyalty is incomplete, because support builds agency that can point outward. Supervisors, who are accountable for retention, tend to steer guidance toward internal goals. The effects were small, and only 26 newcomers in Study 1’s final sample left the company.

Implications for mentoring programs

Mentoring should not be treated as an automatic retention tool. Programs can:

  • Assign supervisors as mentors when possible.
  • Connect peer mentors with supervisors so career advice ties back to opportunities inside the organization.
  • Train all mentors on organizational goals.
  • Pair career support with visible paths to promotion and recognition.

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