Mentoring: new insights on both sides

Why join the programme as a mentor?

Jouni Lappalainen, Team leader (Transport and Communications Agency)

I currently work at the Transport and Communications Agency as a team leader on a team that conducts various traffic related studies, surveys and maintains statistics. I have been in the working life practically my entire adult life, around forty years. I did my doctoral dissertation a bit later in life with the aim of taking advantage of the lessons and experience that had been accumulated earlier in my working years.

I received an invitation to mentor in late 2019, by which point just over three years had passed from my own dissertation. During grad school I felt I had a lot of encouragement and guidance from the university and the university community. And now referred to as a mentor, I felt that now I might be able to give something back to the university and to the mentee, based on my knowledge and experience accumulated in numerous different types of positions, organisations and different industries. I hope that, through my experience, I have managed to communicate the options and possibilities of working life outside the university.

Even though I am quite experienced in working life, I have also gained a lot from mentoring myself. I've had insights into my own job as a supervisor. I can now perhaps better guide and encourage my own team members to develop their skills and navigate their own career paths.

Why join the programme as a mentee?

Salla Eilola, Postdoctoral Researcher (Department of Geography and Geology of the University of Turku)

I applied to the mentoring programme when I knew I would come to a defend my dissertation during the year of mentoring and I longed for perspectives from someone who has already defended and worked outside the university. The discussions with Jouni have been very giving, as his experience in the private sector and in the government has shed light on the career opportunities I have craved for me.

I completed my PhD in the summer of 2020 and am currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Turku on participatory urban planning and spatial information. My research has been applied throughout my university career and I have worked in multi-disciplinary teams. Even so, stepping outside academia is not easy and “selling” one's own expertise, which is often expected of us newly graduates, is challenging as a geographer, i.e., a generalist. In conversation with a mentor, I have outlined better what skills and expertise I have to offer in a variety of expert organisations.

I also understand that compared to the current researcher job, the job description in other expert positions may be very similar or different, but the realities of the work environment are likely to remain the same no matter where in the future I work. These realities include project centrality and flexibility of working time and place. The mentoring discussions have also, thankfully, helped to better my understanding of what kind of an employee I am and what kind of things I value at work. That understanding will certainly help when making the next career choices.