Did you know that mentoring can help improve your professional skills?

"In any case, it is an interesting challenge, and the course of mentoring depends a lot on which people need to be mentored. I was fortunate, as the mentees turned out to be very practical and conscientious young people," Hegle rejoices.

"Mutual learning motivates both parties. The mentor himself also learns and sees things from new perspectives or learns about new methods. At the same time, it is good team management and work planning exercise, which gives a sense of whether I would like to be a team leader," says Timo about challenging himself.

"The feeling of giving is also motivating when you see that you have been able to inspire a young person with the help of your knowledge so that he can overcome the bottlenecks," adds Priit.

Timo adds that by mentoring, he can explain to someone else the activities and processes he encounters daily. He also reflects on how he actually understands these processes by putting thoughts into words. "At the same time, in such moments, I try to be empathetic towards the students and think about how I would like to be welcomed in the company," says Timo.

"For me, mentoring has also proven useful because I was able to solve a bug that I had for a long time in another project," Joosep rejoices. "I had not come across this specific back-end framework before. Now that I was forced to do it, it was quite exciting to study the topic and improve my knowledge," he adds.

The challenge was at the beginning of the project when the administrative actions on TWN's part tended to drag on. According to the mentors, it was difficult to plan their work if it was unclear who would start and when. We can improve on this in the future.

In May-June, the school semester was still in full swing, and finding time for meetings and gathering all 8 interns and mentors together at the same time, was a real challenge, according to Hegle. Thanks to the strong motivation of the trainees and the project manager, we were able to do it.

"Surely, mentors would get to know the mentees and their abilities better if they could spend more time physically together. At the time, it was possible to hold short meetings mostly online," says Hegle.

"At first, when people don't know each other, it takes time to develop the courage to ask and express their opinions. For example, in the design sprints that took place in the office, it was easy to see how being in the same room helped a lot," Hegle confirms the necessity of physical meetings.

Hegle adds that the Scrum methodology used is developed during cooperation. We didn't have many developers in the team, so the roles had to be redistributed, and it also took time for everything to fit together again.

"Inventing the concept and getting it to work for the first time is quite an achievement," Hegle praises the team. "However, as a mentor, I feel that we could have benefited from an extra month. Now at the end of the internship, with a sense of the team and the pace already in place, a lot more could have been accomplished with this project," she adds.

Timo considers the trainees' enthusiasm and interest in the matter important. "The desire to learn and develop must come from them. All kinds of clarifying questions and comments only enliven the learning process for both sides," he affirms.

According to Priit, he tries to be a hands-off mentor as much as possible because he believes that learning through fire and water has always been the most effective. "If the mentee starts to "drown", of course, I will help out," he adds in a friendly manner.

Priit and Joosep appreciate it when the intern is proactive and dares to ask for help at the right time. It is essential to understand when there is a turning point, where you can't go any further, or it doesn't make sense to go on, and you have to think of alternative solutions. They do not poke the interns very much - once in the morning, they ask what was done the previous day and if there are any questions.

All our mentors agree that, as a rule, they like to help people and share their knowledge. A good mentor knows what he is talking about and has a lot of experience.

"Communication plays the most important role in mentoring - how you express yourself and in what "language". Developers tend to talk using specific terms. If you understand your specialty, you should be able to explain things to others in common language," says Priit about one of the most important skills of a mentor. "Communication with young people should be chill and pleasant, not strict or official. It also relieves unnecessary tension," he adds.

"For the mentee to dare to ask questions and comment, the mentor must create a safe and open atmosphere. In a stress-free environment, the trainee will remember the collected information better," says Timo. "There are no stupid questions for a good mentor. He must be able to suppress his ego and be ready to explore and learn something unknown with his mentee," adds Joosep.