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Coffee Club Discussion: Mentorship

15/5/2018

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This month we are going to talk about the importance of a having a mentor in our career!

Many accomplished individuals credit their mentors for their successes. There are many examples, some of which include Oprah Winfrey- Maya Angelou and Bill Gates- Warren Buffett. A mentor can teach the mentee the responsibilities of the job, provide guidance on navigating industry’s policies & practices, and create networking opportunities for the young individual.

Many women in STEM fields can benefit from mentorship to help them achieve a long and successful career. It is often challenging to establish a relationship with a mentor, whether formal or informal, often due to lack of female leaders or perceived inaccessibility of mentors. To bridge the gap, we need more women as mentors, and also to foster a culture of mentorship.

For our coffee club discussion, we’ll be focusing on the value of having a mentor and ways we can achieve effective mentorship relationships. Please check out the links below and send us some of your comments!

Questions to think about this month:
  1. Why should I have a mentor and what should I look to get out of mentorship?
  2. Do women have different mentorship opportunities, or approach mentorship differently than men? Why?
  3. How do I find a mentor and how do I be a mentee (ie. how can I be mentored effectively)?

Check out the links below for some valuable and handy resources:

Mentorship Can Change the Gender Gap in the STEM Fields | Michelle Wu | TEDxAlWaslWomen

Michelle is passionate about solving women pipeline challenge in the STEM fields. Since 2015, Michelle has set up STEM mentorship program in 3 countries through GE Women's Network in the Middle East. Michelle believes that through mentorship and sponsorship, women can thrive and change the gender gap in male-dominated fields.

National guideline on mentoring programs

Disclaimer Engineers Canada's national guidelines, model guides, and white papers were developed by engineers in collaboration with the provincial and territorial engineering regulators. They are intended to promote consistent practices across the country. They are not regulations or rules; they seek to define or explain discrete topics related to the practice and regulation of professional engineering in Canada.

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https://www.engr.psu.edu/awe/misc/ARPs/ARP_Mentoring_overview120408.pdf
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Coffee Club Discussion: Bringing Men into the Conversation

19/3/2018

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This month, we are going to talk about the role of male allies in the battle for truly gender-equal workplaces.

Gender inequality is not only a women’s issue, but we don't hear a lot from men. If men are blind to the gender gap experienced by women, we can hardly expect them to care about it, or to be partners in helping to close it. However – we are never going to achieve an equal workplace if we don’t have those male allies leaning in to meet us partway.

We as women talk about these issues frequently, though often by doing this we leave men out of the conversation. Sometimes, males who do care and have the best intentions still don’t know what to say, or are terrified of being reprimanded for saying the wrong thing – and that is where we can step in.

During our March Coffee Club, we will talk about starting the conversation with our male colleagues, and making sure our voice is heard equally.

Questions to think about:
  1. What is your definition of a “male ally”?
  2. What is the culture like at your workplace?
  3. What was your experience dealing with men at work and what did you do?

Check out these articles for some more thinking points!

Men As Allies: Engaging Men to Advance Women in the Workplace

How to be an ally to someone experiencing microaggressions (essay)

Want to be an ally to women at work?

What's a Male Ally to Do? Try These Five Things.
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Negotiation... Naturally?!

24/2/2018

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As a woman, we are often told that we need to negotiate more. Negotiation is important in closing the gender equity gap, and frankly, we often miss opportunities to do it. Men negotiate four times as much as women, 20 percent of women say that they never negotiate at all, and when we do manage to negotiate, on average, women get 30% less. This is a contributing factor to the fact that women are still earning 74 cents on the dollar to men.
 
Like it or not, we have a responsibility to negotiate for ourselves in order to advance our place in society. That said, negotiating can be much easier said than done. There are inherent benefits to every negotiation, but there can also be inherent risks. As women in engineering in particular, we are used to calculating risk, and the potential social costs and unclarity of negotiation can act as a major deterrent. So what are we to do about this?
 
In our coffee club, we’re going to focus on three main points: how to identify opportunities where you can negotiate in work and in life, how to overcome obstacles to negotiations, and how to ask for things in the right way (ie. – the best way that works for you). Here are some questions to think about before this Saturday’s coffee session:
  • What kinds of opportunities do you have in your every day life to negotiate?
  • Have you ever had a situation in which you did negotiate, and regretted it? Have you ever had a situation in which you didn’t negotiate, and regretted it? Why?
  • What are the kind of hesitations that you make when you think about negotiating?

Here are some articles to get thinking, read away and let's discuss. 
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Why Women Must Ask (The Right Way): Negotiation Advice From Stanford's Margaret A. Neale

Few Stanford Graduate School of Business MBA students would argue that Professor Margaret A. Neale is a powerful woman. At over six feel tall, even my male classmates would be intimidated to negotiate with her. And it's not just because she often calls out students' "sub-optimal" negotiation strategies in front of the whole class-it's because she's clearly a master negotiator .

Why Some Women Negotiate Better Than Others

5 Negotiation Mistakes That Trip Women Up

Part of coming up in the world of campaigns and politics like we did entails a LOT of job-hopping, since your work is at the mercy of the election cycle. But for all it's uncertainty, all that job-hopping also gave me tons of opportunities to practice my negotiation skills - and I learned a lot through trial and (mostly) error.

Over Sixty Percent of Millennial Women Say They Don't Know How To Ask For More
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Exploring Your Career Path

7/1/2018

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Hey SWEsters,

We hope you had a great holiday season and are ready to jump right back into our monthly coffee club discussions!

This month, in the spirit of new years, new beginnings and new resolutions, we want to focus on career planning, the importance of setting goals and the importance of the three year plan.

First, let's get inspired by a great TED talk! Then take a look at the following articles, send us some of your own in the comments section and get ready for deep dive discussions into career planning.
Why should I plan my career?

The Importance Of Having A Solid Career Plan

Almost everyone has some sort of significant goal or aspiration they hope to achieve in the future. For a significant number people, this includes some type of long-term career plan or dream job that they would like to obtain.

You Owe Yourself a Career Path Plan

Career pathing is the process used by an employee to chart a course within an organization for his or her career path and career development. Career pathing involves understanding what knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, and experience are required for an employee to progress his or her career laterally, or through access to promotions and / or departmental transfers.

How do I put together an effective plan?

Guide to Writing a Career Development Plan

Destination Dream Job: Creating a Career Roadmap

Whether you want to run your own company or snag the corner office at your current job, you probably have an end-goal for your career. But do you really know what you need to do to get there?

How To Make A Career Map That Actually Works
But... How far ahead should I plan?

Creating A Career Plan: Short-, Medium- And Long-Term

You've probably spent quite a bit of time thinking about what you want to accomplish professionally. If you haven't already put together a personal career plan, it's a good idea to set aside an hour or so and sit down to plot out your short-, medium- and long-term goals.

Don't feel like reading? Not a problem; here are some great podcasts to get into:
Smart Career Planning by Helen Chao on Apple Podcasts
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Career Transitions

30/10/2017

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This month at Coffee Club we will be discussing Career Transitions and will try to cover the following questions that one might consider when deciding whether or not to move on.

How do we know it is time to leave a company?
What is it that makes us want to stay in a company?
Are women more likely to be loyal to a company than their male counterparts?
What should you ask yourself before deciding to leave a company?
How to leave gracefully and not burn bridges?
Is employee loyalty overrated?
Do we need to leave to move up?

Below are some articles to inform the conversation. We welcome all SWE Toronto members to get involved in the conversation early and post some of your own articles and opinions below! What have your experiences been with career transitions? What advice would you give fellow SWEsters? What questions do you have on the topic?

Desperate to quit your job? Read this first.
Why Employees Stay
The Price Tag for Employee Loyalty
10 Questions To Ask Before You Quit Your Job
Ready to Quit Your Job? 5 Steps to Your Exit Strategy
Eventbrite - SWE Toronto Coffee Club - October (Moved to Nov 4th)
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The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Toronto connects and supports women engineers and engineering graduates in Toronto, Canada, enabling them to rise together as a community.
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