Gabriela Borutová has spent over a decade in tech, but what drives her as a Femme Palette mentor has little to do with technical skills. In this spotlight, she shares why she said yes to mentoring, how our upbringing as women shapes the way we see ourselves across every generation, and why professional growth is so often less about learning something new and more about finally being heard. Plus her advice for mentors who want to go beyond giving advice and start creating real, lasting change.
When mentee Eliska Krychova was balancing two part-time jobs and looking to start a career abroad at the same time, her mentor Anca Trandaf jumped in to help. In this interview, they reflect on their mentoring sessions, the importance of asking for help and how you can benefit from mentoring even if your needs change over time.
Since September 2020, Femme Palette has been a proud partner of Czech non-profit organization Nadání a dovednosti. For nine years already, the platform has been helping students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to make sure their first career steps are heading in the right direction. As our give back initiative, we have been offering a couple free seats for Nadani a Dovednosti twice in a year. For each cohort, three young adults from Nadání a dovednosti’s project Rozhled were chosen to receive 6 months of mentoring from our global mentor community of experts. This year, we’re taking our partnership further and committed to help 50 young adults from the project Rozhled over the next 2 years. Keep on reading to learn more about what three of the selected mentees have achieved and why they appreciate being part of the program!
Zuzana Dobrovolna had already completed the Leadership program, but after starting a new role and chapter in her career, she felt in need of some guidance again. She joined the Mentoring program and got matched with mentor Petra Imrichova. In this interview, they discuss how mentoring has been a game changer and how important it is to be open and honest.
Mentoring Daniela Sedlonova (a professional mental coach and a Google certified trainer) seemed a challenge at first to her mentor Pavla Grigarova (a regional marketing lead at Google). But during their chemistry session, they both discovered it was a mentoring match made in heaven. Read about how mentoring has contributed to both of the ladies’ careers.
Feedback – it’s something that shouldn’t be missed when entering the mentoring relationship. The goal of mentoring is to develop and grow in both your professional and personal lives. However, growth doesn’t work without proper feedback. It’s essential to hear the other side and, even more important, to learn to speak out for yourself. Let’s dig deeper into why giving and receiving feedback in mentoring is crucial.
Imposter Syndrome (IS) is an experience where we are doubting ourselves and feeling like a fraud. Sometimes, it feels like you don’t deserve the accolades given to you and sometimes it literally feels like you are so stupid and incapable of doing the job given to you. Have you ever encountered such an experience? Well, you are not the only one. It happens to everyone from time-to-time.
The story of Julie Klimentová and Anastasia Kuperberg is similar to one from a movie. Julie who, according to her mentee, has the dream job as a Software Engineer at Microsoft, helped her mentee switch careers and become a Junior front-end developer. In this light-hearted interview, the mentoring pair shares what they learned from each other, and it ends on a positive note, with probably the biggest compliment a mentee can receive from a mentor.
Imposter syndrome is a common issue that mentees deal with, and, for many, the reason why they seek the help of a mentor in the first place. But as a mentor, how can you actually get to the root of the problem and truly help them?We asked Šimon Steffal, Founder and Chief Vision Officer of Mindset Mentors, for some tips on how you can help your mentee turn things around.
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