You should not get a mentor just to get feedback on your CV and cover letters. Thus, before you apply for a mentor, please consider if your needs/challenges might be met by individual counselling or participation on events, offered by AU Career PhD & JR.
In order to become a mentee, you must:
As a mentee you are expected to show commitment and engagement and to prioritize the meetings with your mentor.
We also encourage you to participate in the 4 meetings during the program’s 8 months. The mentor programme is a long term relation; not just a one-off meeting.
Erika Vigna. PhD. Inano/Chemistry. Team Lead at Siemens Gamesa.
Erika is currently a part of our mentor programme as a mentor. However, Erika was once a mentee herself. Here she shares her experiences as a mentee, and how her mentor played an important role in both her professional and personal development:
I registered for the mentor programme as I was not sure how I ould "sell myself" in a new environment different from academia.
At the beginning, my biggest concern was that every job posting seemed not to match with my competences and that made me upset. My mentor guided me through the job ads and explained where I should see myself fitting in. We went through the most common questions for interviews, and he helped me understand what the best ways to formulate answers were. We looked at some of my job applications and further discussed possible interview questions.
My mentor was just great!!! He always found the right words when explaining me how I could match my profile when looking at job ads, as well as provide the right input while correcting CV and cover letter. Last but not least, he shared some of his previous experiences in job interviews that somehow prepared me for what types of situations could occur in a job interview.
I think that having my mentor’s guidance and coaching did help me a lot in getting a job. Without him, it would have been a lot more difficult.
From ’The Mentoring Journey’:
The most important thing you can get out of the mentoring relationship is the chance to discuss issues with an independent ’third party’. You can talk to your mentor about topics that may be difficult, awkward or impossible to discuss with friends, family, colleagues, your boss or your partner/husband/wife. Having an external, ‘neutral’ person to discuss certain issues with can be easier, because they are not personally involved. Other main benefits are:
