Step Up Video Mentoring Opportunities - Career Camp 2023
Step Up invites mentors to support Career Camp, our 3-week free, virtual career prep program for young adults ages 14-29, through video mentoring. Share your experience and wisdom with the young adults in one or more of three areas: career alignment, career mapping, and/or virtual networking. Read on to learn more about the topics and how you can participate. We will accept submissions through Friday, July 7.
Career Camp Video Mentoring Options and Guidelines
Topic 1: Career Alignment: Finding your Fit
This mentoring moment will support young adults’ self-awareness by having them identify their values, strengths, and interests which allow them to explore their career interests/paths. You can support by providing a summary of your career journey. You can share your interests, skills, values and experiences which led you to your current career path, and you can close with tips and actionable next steps for girls interested in your specific career or career track.
Suggested Talking Points:
- My name is [your name] and I am a mentor at Step Up. I wanted to share a bit about how I found a career that is a great fit for me.
- Let me tell you a little about myself. I am from [where you consider home] and currently [what you do now]. I got to where I am today because of my [what your values, interests or strengths are and how you were able to make career decisions that allowed you to align those values, interests, or strengths with your current career].
Suggested Length: 1-minute
Topic 2: Career Mapping: Building Professional Pathways
This mentoring moment will focus on setting value-aligned goals and creating action plans. If you have a particularly interesting or unusual professional pathway, you can support by sharing what goals you set to help you move along your path, detailing the pivots or leaps you made to your plan to allow you to carve out your own career path.
Suggested Talking Points:
- My name is [your name] and I am a mentor at Step Up. I wanted to share some [pivots, leaps, or highlights] of my professional pathway with you toward [whatever your current profession is].
- First, let me tell you a little about myself. I am from [where you consider home] and currently [what you do now]. I got to where I am today by [what you studied or steps you took to end up where you are, share your successes, missteps, and any key pivotal moments that have shared your professional path. You can share what you thought would be your career as a teen and how different situations, interests, and experiences contributed to your decisions and, ultimately, your current career path].
- Finally, when trying to determine if a career is a good fit for you, I’d recommend [share relevant guidance and/or resource].
Suggested Length: 1-minute
Topic 3: Career Preparation: Virtual Networking
This mentoring moment will focus on productive networking sessions. Share your insights on how to formulate questions that will engage the individual you are networking with, and why networking is important in career planning.
Suggested Talking Points:
- My name is [your name] and I am a mentor at Step Up. I wanted to share some of my favorite tips to keep in mind when networking with someone virtually.
- First, let me tell you a little about myself. I am from [where you consider home] and currently [what you do now]. Throughout my career I have found that [specific networking tips, questions to ask, how to prepare] helped me successfully connect with someone in a virtual setting.
- Networking is an integral part of career planning and job search. In my own experience, I have used it to [specific ways networking has led you to a specific position/career path/career insight].
Suggested Length: 1-minute
Tips
Before you start to record your video, we encourage you to review our words matter guide to ensure your message is focused on asset-based language that is encouraging and inspiring!
If you’re unsure of best practices for how to record your mentoring video, just check out New York University’s tips for recording yourself. It shares tips on choosing the ideal shooting location, setting up your phone/camera, lighting, camera presence, and answering questions.
Next Steps
Once you’ve completed your video, just email it to mentor@suwn.org. By submitting your video via email to Step Up, you are granting Step Up permission to use it as part of our Step Up programming for Career Camp.