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>> The mentorship program provided us
with an extensive list of mentors.
There are roughly 30 plus mentors.
All have positions very different in industry.
So in my experience,
I didn't feel like I was assigned one specific person.
Instead I was able to choose from the extensive list
and see who I connected with the best
and who fit my interests the best as well.
So it wasn't assigned.
It was more like an exploratory
and a more matching process that was very specific
to my needs and not necessarily
just in general to a student.
>> To provide some context, I started the program
as finishing up my fifth year in PhD program
so I was starting to think seriously
about whether I wanted to stay in academia
or to transition into industry.
And for me, I realized
I really didn't know much about industry.
So going into the program I wanted to become more informed
about my options in industry
and to explore careers in general.
So going in, when we were presented with a long list
of 50 odd mentors, I was really pleased
to see a lot of people in the types
of jobs I'd be interested in.
And so I picked mentors based on where they were working
but also their exposure to academia as well
which area choices I was trying to choose between.
So I was lucky to pair up with someone who had experience
both at a big pharma company
and was currently working at a research institute
and he was incredibly helpful in helping me understand
the diversity of jobs in industry
and kind of dispel certain myths I had
about going into industry, in a pipeline
that really only shunts you in one direction
and you're stuck doing that forever.
Talking to him, I was really able
to appreciate the diversity of career moves
you can make in industry
where you go in and you become interested
in the business side perhaps
and you can actually shift laterally in a big company.
And so overall I feel like I was,
coming out of the program I feel
much more informed about my decisions
and much more comfortable making a choice.
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>> The biggest benefit I've had
from working with my mentor has been building confidence
in my transferable skills.
I've really learned that the strengths
that I've built throughout my thesis work
that would make me an asset to a company
and importantly I've learned how to really
flex those skills on my resume
and through the interview process in order to demonstrate
how important of an employee I'll be to a future employer.
>> It was for me very beneficial to have this kind of help
once I had drafted my application document.
So for example, my resume,
my cover letter, my LinkedIn page.
It was absolutely helpful to have two different mentors
go over those documents and kind of give me their insight
and put in the different words
that I needed to transition into industry,
to turn that academic resume into an industry-like resume.
>> So in addition to getting his own insights
into his career path and what he's enjoyed,
along the way I became interested in consulting
which is outside of his expertise
but surprisingly he had a very rich network of people
and was able to connect me with someone
who he had worked with who was director
at a prestigious firm that I was interested in.
And so, this is someone
I would never have approached directly,
pretty intimidating title, but based on the connection
I was able to have a wonderful conversation
with the director, learn a lot about working in consulting
and especially at the firm and what made the firm special.
And so based on that one connection
I was able to write a very strong cover letter for the job
and because he referred me to the recruiters
I think that really helped me
get an invitation to interview.
And so after pursuing that opportunity,
I ultimately got an offer
and really I think I trace it all back to the connection
that my mentor generously offered to me
that was entirely unexpected.
So I think that's a huge bonus
to being in a mentorship program
where your mentors are these highly connected people
that have really rich networks.
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>> The most important piece of advice
I think I could give someone looking for a mentor is
to find someone who's honest,
not just about what you can do to improve
but also about their own limits on how they can advise you.
So if you can find someone that really can connect you
with others in their network who are more familiar
with other work environments
or career choices than they are,
then that's a good mentor.
>> I would also advise them to be prepared
for each one of these meetings.
The meetings can occur at any frequency
but for me they happened once every month
for a period of six months
and I thought it was absolutely helpful to have an agenda
so that way I could follow the different points
throughout the meeting and be prepared for everything
that they wanted to talk about
and not be redundant or go over things
that weren't planned for.
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I think it will definitely impact my career choice
in that it will solidify it
so I at first had a broad idea of what the job was like
but having talked to my mentors and they explained to me
what the everyday activities are like
for that particular position,
I thought it was extremely helpful
'cause they not only talk over it over the phone
but they also explained in person
what it's like for doing these particular positions.
So I thought that was extremely helpful
'cause sometimes it's really hard
to picture what a job is like
unless you experience it in person
or someone that actually has done it
before explains it to you first hand.
I also thought it was very helpful
in terms of having a network,
increased network in industry.
Before meeting these mentors
I had basically not a lot of access
to different people in industry
so I certainly think that this helped me connect with people
that otherwise I would not have been able to.
And this is all things thanks to the program.
>> Well going in I really had only known academia
and I was really under informed
about all of my other options.
And what this mentorship program really did
was catalyze my education
about the diversity of jobs available out there
for people with a science background.
Ultimately, the structure of the program
and the connections that it provided,
helped me find a job that I think really matches
what I loved best from my academic experience.
That just happens to be somewhere else.
And so, yeah, this mentorship was really, really critical
in shaping my job search and helping provide
the resources I need to find a good fit.
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