Why did you decide to become a mentor?
I have always been interested in teaching, sharing skills, and making others progress, as I find these tasks very rewarding at a personal level. When I was 20 years old, I set up my own maths and physics business to give private lessons to high school students. After that, throughout my career, I started my mentorship journey by informally mentoring friends in specific areas. Three years ago, I started online mentoring to mentees out of my personal network.
How did you get your career start?
When I was an engineering student, I was quite sure that I wanted to start my career in engineering Project Management, to both use my technical skills, but at the same time influence the overall direction of projects and have a high level view of the scope. I reached that conclusion by speaking to multiple more senior students at my school. We can say that they were my mentors. At a later stage in my career, I decided to do an MBA at a top school, to progress faster in my career, after discussing with multiple MBA students including my own brother. I used my MBA time to explore many career paths by networking with tens of peers and more senior professionals. They all were my mentors, helping me to choose my post-MBA path.
What do mentees usually come to you for?
I have worked with many mentees in the last few years, covering multiple topics. The most frequent topics that I am asked for help for are: 1/ Job interviews. On top of performing mock-up interviews both for competency based questions and general business cases, I provide preparation guidelines to prepare for interviews. 2/ Career growth: I help with decision-making, both asking questions to my mentees to help them explore the right options, and answering their questions on the basis of my previous experience. 3/ Work-related situations: mentees come to me to solve specific complex tasks at work, or handle difficult situations. I give them guidance on how to progress on those tasks, or solve the challenges that they are facing. I always start by carefully listening to my mentees, to then determine the best course of action and tailor the content of my sessions accordingly.
What's been your favourite mentorship success story so far?
I helped one of my mentees to get a more senior role in a top worldwide company, by helping her in preparing the interview process and performing several mock-up interviews. The first session was around general preparation guidelines. Then, my mentee worked by preparing the material that we discussed. Once that material was ready, we worked together in several mock-up interview sessions, where I provided constructive feedback. I could see her improvement over our sessions, and she finally got the role! This outcome was very rewarding and made all my mentee’s effort worth it.
What are you getting out of being a mentor?
When I started mentoring, I had not realised all the benefits that it would bring to me. On top of the great feeling of helping others, being a mentor is a great confidence booster. When mentoring, we have the opportunity to deeply understand our capabilities, and put them into practice for benefiting others. Moreover, mentoring is also very valuable for self-reflection and understanding of our own selves as mentors. When mentoring, we often have to answer questions about our life paths, decisions, and own ideas. All these questions help us, as mentors, in reinforcing our own self beliefs. At the same time, these questions also help us challenge ourselves, and always strive for more.