Orientation sought! And found.
Berlin native Karina Tolstova made the move to Graz to study. For the question of how she can best transfer her acquired knowledge and at the same time her interests into the professional world, she has brought the communications professional Andreas Neubauer to her side as a mentor. What they both took away from the mentorship, they told us in a joint conversation.
Karina, when you started your mentorship, what. did you hope to accomplish with it?
At that point, I was lacking ideas, a Thread, of impulses. I had the feeling that I needed to talk to someone who is already in professional life and who can give me tips, for example in applications better comes across, where you can apply and inform.
What did you experience as being particularly supportive?
Most of all, the regularity of the meetings with someone from a professional environment and also Andreas' inputs on how I can, for example, research, can appear professionally or educate myself further. Because otherwise you don't know where where to start. As I said, I was a bit lost at the time and my missing points of contact I could work out well with Andreas.
"Especially the regularity of the meetings with someone from a professional environment I have experienced as particularly supportive."
Andreas, how did you approach your mentorship organizationally? approached?
As Karina has already said, we looked to make sure that there was a especially at the beginning, there was a regularity of two to three meetings per month. has. In Karina's orientation process, it was important that she could try different to try out different things. We tried to filter out in the first meetings, what she was most interested in and worked towards gaining experience in those areas. experience in these areas. So specifically taking the first step and, for example, to complete internships in various agencies.
After the orientation phase, it went more in the direction of practical topics. For example, how do you write a resume, how do you one adapts it to the job advertisement or how one formulates its experiences in an easily understandable way. We then always worked on these topics "on the way", if it was just topical.
We then successfully went through the application process and Karina was able to gain her first experience. For me was in further Folgeesehr exciting to see Karina get to know agency life up close. Agencies are very different. Especially in the field of marketing and PR, there are many different many subtopics. The only way to find out what really suits you is to try it out, if you try it out once. This trial and error is an important step that brings more more orientation.
The learning in a mentorship is not only one-sided. What could you learn from your mentee?
Andreas: At one of the agencies, Karina had a lot to do with influencer Marketing had to do and in this area I was able to expand my knowledge thanks to her. An absolute win-win situation.
"Especially in the area of Influence Marketing, in which Karina already has experience, I was able to expand my knowledge through her."
[Photo: (c) Studiox_Nadja Fuchs]
Karina, now that you look back, what were you able to Take away from the mentorship?
I was able to take away a lot of courage to believe in my own Believe in my own abilities. I was always a bit scared and thought I wouldn't get the job anyway. don't get the job anyway. I'm now 34 and was afraid that no one would take me on that no one would take me on or that my previous experience wouldn't be enough. Andreas motivated me and made me aware of my abilities with his outside perspective. And in fact I was then taken on as a trainee in a PR agency that was ranked 24th out of the 100 best PR agencies in Germany. I would never have believed.
Who would you recommend a mentorship to?
Karina: All those who lack a common thread and who don't constantly annoy any people with it, but want to have someone regularly at the side want to have to work out in which direction it should go for them. So All students, unless they already have a very precise path in mind. Especially I recommend it for humanities students:inside.
Andreas: I agree with that. I know some people who, for example. For example, have studied teaching and then want to do something completely different. Then a mentorship is a great way to exchange ideas with someone. And you realize that the career path doesn't have to be as straightforward as it used to be.
Dear Karina, dear Andreas, thank you very much for the interview!