Ways to Learn, Grow and Strive
Mentorship session tips from Clustered x APX’s Nasty Womxn
On a recent fall evening at APX in Berlin, the Nasty Womxn community gathered for something special. Namely, five simultaneous mentorship sessions led by exemplary professional women who helped other women to learn, grow and strive. In this post, you’ll see why the format worked well and find some useful highlights to perhaps apply to your path.
Nasty Womxn is a concept from APX, Europe’s most ambitious early-stage VC. The purpose is to discuss key workplace topics: from allies and the pay gap to periods and inclusion. The central tenet is to unite people who want to make a positive change in the world.
At this event, topics included networking, confidence, career path, finding a job you love, and negotiation. Since there was no time to do all sessions, you had to pick two. While semi-tough for indecisive folks, it worked out well.
Group member Rotem Carmely, a co-founder of a new networking platform called Clustered, kicked things off with an intro to the format of the evening (two, 40-minute sessions with a quick break in between) as well as sharing the mission of her startup: to facilitate meaningful professional connections while providing a support system for achieving goals.
The five experts featured Lene-Louise Steenfat, Carrie Shuler, Rotem Carmely, Inbal Cohen, and Ela Krief. Each woman was well-prepared to share her expertise while engaging with the small groups, listening to individual challenges, and addressing those with constructive tips.
Bringing career experts together with diverse professionals at various levels lowered the entry bar to mentorship opportunities, which can be tricky to identify or pursue.
Remarkable interactions
Even though attendees generally began the evening as strangers – despite knowing a few familiar faces – participants quickly related deeply and shared experiences & tips, found commonalities and made new connections. In less than 2 hours, I had listened to compelling stories, offered advice, gained tips on how to prioritize my life, expanded my network, and set up 2 coffee dates.
I was struck by how much common ground emerged among the stories shared, particularly similar road bumps and questions encountered. Even though the relatively short evening couldn’t answer all the questions, it sparked the formation of a new Slack group to carry on the topics more thoroughly and provide on-the-go support for later.
Efficient role modeling at its finest
The sessions were a great mix of role models who emphasized topics that people had self-selected from a pre-event survey and a quick sign-in on arrival. By the organizers choosing NOT to do a panel, they created more opportunities to bring the audience closer to the speakers on influential workplace concepts.
Connect the dots
Inbal Cohen shared advice on navigating one’s career path. In doing so, she offered this CV advice: when creating a new CV, analyze what you’ve done and focus on your key accomplishments, provide numbers to back those accomplishments up, emphasize what is relevant to the role you seek, and remove anything irrelevant. Find the ‘dots’ and connect them for the person reviewing your CV.
When seeking a new role, only look for the rank (or level of role) that you are aiming for. Ignore the rest. And push yourself to aim higher. It’s a rough generalization, but women tend to apply for roles they can easily handle while men apply for something that is more of a stretch, assuming they will fill it. So aim higher. Don’t waste time on jobs below the rank you want to achieve.
Reflect with these questions
After sharing her story of how she became a CPO, Inbal suggested taking even 10-minute breaks in your day to reflect. Can’t find the time? Try it while doing chores, commuting, showering, etc. She recommends considering questions:
What do I deeply enjoy?
What kind of setting do I wish to work in?
What does it look like, and even what’s the activity/noise level?
What aspects of what I do now do I enjoy?
What gets you excited and what are you passionate about?
(To the last point, she notes, maybe the job itself is the passion or it finances the passion, like skiing for example.)
Get inspired
From a session with Lene-Louise, here are some takeaways that moved me:
Go for what you love. Do everything you can for yourself. Give love to your team. Trick your mind into finding new energy to be able to navigate making changes when you need to. Make sure you find a mutually good vibe with an employer. You need feedback from colleagues whether you are working remotely or not. Without feedback, you can’t grow.
Because after all, it’s all about growth.
If this resonates with you, feel free to join APX’s Nasty Womxn Linkedin Group, and follow me, Elisheva Marcus, for more insights on female role models & inclusive entrepreneurship.
