Become a mentor for a young researcher who is making career choices!
The programme is seeking mentors from a wide range of academic and non-academic backgrounds. The deadline for applications is 7 December. The application form.
The mentoring programme will run from January to May 2022. The mentor – mentee pairs are expected to meet around five times during the programme, and three joint virtual meetings will also be organised.
Mentors will also learn on the job
The programme is aimed at final stage doctoral researchers, and post-doctoral researchers. Mentoring supports the participants’ professional and personal development and helps them to clarify their ideas about future career choices.
The programme gives the mentors an opportunity to support a young researcher with career choices, but it will also offer new insight into, for example, coaching skills and give new ideas and perspectives from the other participants and an opportunity to reflect on one’s own career and know-how.
“The most important aspect for the mentor is the desire to support younger talents with their career and development thoughts,” says Kaisa-Riikka Salomaa, HR-Specialist and co-coordinator of the programme.
PhDs with different career choices are invited to participate
Because the programme will be organised virtually, it is also suitable for doctors who are working and living abroad.
“We need doctors who have made diverse career choices: your background and experience may be exactly what one of the university’s young researchers would want in a mentor,” says Anneli Uusitalo, HR-Specialist and co-coordinator of the programme.
The mentoring pairs are formed based on common factors. The commonalities may include, for example, the mentor's career choices and the mentee’s career aspirations, similar fields, shared skills, or other interests.
The Programme supports the mentees
Mentors Jessica de Bloom and Guanqun Cao from Tampere University’s previous Mentoring Programme talk about their experiences.
“The one-on-one meetings with my mentee were a clear reminder for why I chose research work: to be curious and to inspire others,” says de Bloom who works as Academy Research Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Tampere University.
"Overall, I feel that the programme supported the mentees in exploring their personalities, talents and career choices. It also helped me to understand my own skills better, reflect on my own career and expand my network by connecting to other mentors and mentees. During the group meetings, I gained many valuable resources on transferable skills and ideas on how to mentor a junior researcher successfully,” de Bloom adds.
Guanqun Cao is working as Data Mining Engineer at Volvo Cars.
“As a former graduate of Tampere University of Technology, it was my pleasure to share experiences of “cutting out of the academic bubble”. I also found it rewarding to reflect on my career development and to strengthen my mentoring skills,” Cao says.
For more information, please contact HR Specialist Kaisa-Riikka Salomaa, kaisa-riikka.salomaa [at] tuni.fi or HR Specialist Anneli Uusitalo, anneli.uusitalo [at] tuni.fi.
Mentoring programmes at Tampere University
