Mr. Vargas has managed to provide his mentees with clever insights, clear recommendations, and great feedbacks; helping them clarify their professional objectives in Canada, improve their resume, and practice interview skills. Being the first person receiving this award, the staff hopes that our community pictures him as a role model, following his tips and best practices. Therefore, below we share an interview that aims to highlight his motivation, his tools and/or strategies to maximize mentee success in this program.As Hipanotech’s 2018 Mentorship Program comes to its end, the coordination staff has been able to identify the first mentor to make it to its new Mentorship ‘Hall of Fame’: William Vargas, a Systems Engineer, MBA and certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) with more than 15 years of experience providing IT and business consulting in the mining, insurance, and banking sectors for companies like Accenture, KPMG, and HQS Consulting. Having an impressive mentoring background, he has worked with 4 mentees in the current and past versions of this program (since 2015) catalyzing growth and effectively guided them towards obtaining jobs in their fields.
Hispanotech:
How did the call to be a mentor arise and what motivates you to continue this type of contribution to Hispanotech’s professional community?
Mr. Vargas:
As part of the strong volunteering culture in Canada, it had always been in the back of my mind how could I give back to the community in a manner I would enjoy. Hispanotech’s Mentorship Program provided me with that perfect opportunity, as I was also mentoring young soon-to-be MBA graduates at the Schulich School of Business since 2014. My main motivation is the rewarding feeling of helping others to avoid some of the struggles that I had myself in the past. In addition, these experiences help me develop various ‘people’ skills, so important and relevant to my work as a Project Manager.
Hispanotech:
How would you describe a healthy relationship between the Mentor and the Mentee?
Mr. Vargas:
I feel there is a healthy relationship when both parties feel committed and benefiting from their interaction. The mentee should not be the most interested and invested party in the mentorship experience; the mentor should acknowledge that there are mutual benefits. Obviously, there is the understanding that the mentee should be highly interested, particularly if she/he is seeking help on getting a job, supporting the general belief that she/he must put most of the effort. But things are not that straight-forward as each person is having her/his own challenges at a certain point, which might hinder them on investing the expected effort. It is here where the mentor could use and/or develop her/his skills on bringing the mentee to a spot where goals could be achieved. This is our development challenge as mentors.
Hispanotech:
What Good Practices and/or methodological tools, do you understand, ensure the success in such relationship?
Mr. Vargas:
There are a couple of ‘tools’ that I feel have helped me on improving as a mentor. First, ensuring in the very beginning that we identify clear and achievable goals, while also setting a plan in a simple spreadsheet. That becomes our guideline. Second, be as responsive as possible to the requests from the mentees and provide positive feedback.
Hispanotech:
What trait and/or aptitude, within your understanding, enable the Mentee to extract the greatest value from a mentoring program?
Mr. Vargas:
I think that commitment and a positive attitude are the most key factors for the mentees to get the best out of the program. These two things will help them allocate the necessary effort and time, while not give up that easily when things do not go as planned.
Hispanotech:
Finally, how does the Hispanotech coordination staff contribute or complicate your work as a mentor?
Mr. Vargas:
Hispanotech has made an amazing job with the coordination and logistics for the program, which can be correlated with the increasing number of both mentors and mentees that enrol in every iteration of the program. Hispanotech’s staff have been ‘enablers’, and I never felt them as an obstacle in any way. The kick-off, midterm, and final sessions for each program are very valuable as they promote commitment and feedback. The idea of the super-mentors seems very good, although I am not sure how much the mentors are using it. Mentoring is a skill and not everybody has it naturally; it can be learned, and there is always room for improvement.
Hispanotech’s Mentorship Program has been translating into great networking and real results thanks to the clever mentor-mentee matching performed by the coordination staff, and the great experience (and motivation) shown by its mentors.
We congratulate Mr. Vargas in obtaining this honour and invite the whole community to give back to the community through volunteering. For now, we can’t wait for our next Mentorship Program session! Who will be the Mentor that will join William on the ‘Hall of Fame’?
Written by Carlos Artilez, MEng, PMP
