October 29, 2020
“For me, seeing someone’s confidence grow, and helping someone to feel empowered to go for their dream job is really awesome.”
Who are you? What do we need to know about you?
Hi, my name is Emily and I am from England. I relocated from London to Hamburg in 2017. I’ve been working in tech for four years now; for the first three years I worked in software implementation. During this phase of my career, I decided I wanted to challenge myself so I did a stretch program within marketing. A stretch programme is where you stay in your current role within the company, but you are assigned a mentor within this department and also dedicate ten percent of your time to this role for a specific period (usually between three-four months). This is helpful as you can get hands-on experience in another role whilst simultaneously bringing another perspective and skillset to this team. I decided to apply for a position within the Content Marketing team; I really enjoyed the mix of the technical, product-focussed nature of my full-time role and also having the opportunity to understand how our clients (also marketers) would use our software in a day to day setting.
Above all, this experience helped me realise that having a mentor is invaluable; when I started the stretch program, I was starting from scratch in Content Marketing so having a mentor meant that I had someone to turn to with more experience and a different perspective. My mentor was always helpful, patient and offered me projects and opportunities within the team that challenged me. She also took the time to check in with me regularly, reviewed my work and took an interest in how I was doing generally (the program overlapped with my relocation to Hamburg).
How did your first hear about moinworld?
When I first moved to Hamburg, I was really excited to find a community for women in tech so that I could meet like-minded people and learn new skills. When I came across moinworld, I was delighted and actually volunteered for moinworld for a few months as a content and event marketing assistant.
How is the mentorship programme going for you and your mentee?
It went well! Due to the current pandemic, we had our weekly mentorship meetings online, aside for the last one. During our last session, we met up for brunch in Hamburg and reflected on how the programme went. Overall it was a really interesting process for me. Initially, I did experience some imposter syndrome- my mentee is the same age as me and I really questioned if I had anything to offer that would benefit her professional goals. My mentee is from Brazil, and is currently working in a technical job whilst completing her masters. In comparison to me, my mentee had a lot of academic experience yet wanted to understand more about working in Germany, specifically in tech. In the beginning, we made sure that we outlined her goals and areas she would like to improve. During each session, it was important to have a goal or focus and I regularly followed up with helpful links, job vacancies and additional tips which I researched before and after each session. We also got along on a personal level very well too!
What do you like most about being a mentor?
For me, seeing someone’s confidence grow, and helping someone to feel empowered to go for their dream job is really awesome. I look back at when I started working in London, I looked up to a lot of people at work. I did not call them my mentors but had I stayed there longer I would’ve approached them. Having a mentor is helpful because they bring a very specific perspective and professional skill-set that motivates you to achieve in a different way to the encouragement you get from family and friends. That’s what I consider as really cool about this program. You can help people.
How would you describe the relationship between u and ur mentee? I would not describe it as a teacher- student relationship. My approach was, firstly, to understand my mentee’s goals and communicate any relevant experience and knowledge I have to help her achieve them. I think mentors are also there to hold up a mirror and help their mentee reflect on their own great qualities, challenge their self-doubt and help them feel more confident to go for what they want.
Would you recommend the program to others?
Yes, definitely- I have already done so!
Interested?
Apply today here. A moinworld member will get in touch with you for the next steps within 1 week.
Do you have any questions? Get in touch with us at mentoring@moinworld.de.
We will also have a Meetup celebrating the ending of our first mentors and mentees batch in September. Everybody is welcome to join and listen to some of the success stories. Just follow our events!
Read more about some of our great mentors here.