National Mentoring Month

January Marks National Mentoring Month

National Mentoring Month is a campaign run throughout January in the United States. The campaign is launched in 2002 by MENTOR National and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The campaign aims to spread the mentoring movement, raise awareness around positive outcomes of mentoring for young people and celebrate the power of mentoring in relationships. 

Here at Qooper, we are also celebrating this National Mentoring Month. We believe that mentoring is quite essential to drive career, skills and inclusion in organizations of all types. Mentoring is valuable to transfer knowledge, build and grow communities. It is advantageous when it comes to creating equal and diverse environment by allowing people to share their experiences with each other and benefit from them without judgments. 

Our employees have also benefited from mentoring relationships in the past where they shared some of their experiences below: 

Omer Usanmaz: "As a mentee: We're a growing company and there are a lot of unknowns. Yes, we can figure out the best practices maybe some trial and error. However, a mentor is the best resource you can have to foresee what's coming, prepare for it and avoid it to grow efficiently and with minimum amount of mistakes. As a mentor: People like to learn from others. I see the best method of employee onboarding to be through peer mentorship on a daily basis." 

Jessica Small: "I was a mentee in mentoring relationship. We met at a networking event through a mutual connection. We met up about once a quarter for a while. I was comfortable asking her career type questions. It was great to have a perspective outside of my own on things I could be doing differently to help advance my career. Eventually, it fizzled out but we remain connected on Linkedin." 

Elona Lila: "As a mentee, I learned a lot during my university years from senior students." 

Beste Ozer: "My experience as a mentee lasted almost 2.5 years. In one of my previous companies, I have collaborated with my mentor when I first started as an associate. He supported me through all of my promotional steps from an associate to a team leader and then a supervisionary role. With my mentor's guidance, I was able to see the big picture, improve my leadership skills and gain more confidence within the professional environment. I believe the power of having a mentor in terms of sharing beneficial experiences and applying them to my career journey. I have also experience being a mentor in my university network in the educational year of 2020-2021. I had a mentee who was a senior student, studying the same department with me and I supported her by providing guidance from my professional experiences, including ups and downs, challenges and opportunities I've faced."