On the third week, I had the task of interviewing my mentor and I took this chance to learn as much from my mentor in this interview as possible. I first started of with questions that aren't so serious like what he originally wanted to be when he grew up and then asked more specific questions.
Mentor interview transcript: What did you originally want to be when you were growing up? " I think I wanted to be a vet but its been so long, I'm almost sure I wanted to be a vet." What played your biggest role in choosing your profession today?. " I think this company was why, I was not even looking to get into renewables or nonprofit or anything like that, I went to school for international business and economics so totally different than what I'm doing but my friend who was in the workforce department she started working here and a couple months after that she was the one who told me hey you got to come check this company out, I think you will like it and I gave it a try, I started with an internship here then worked my way up and applied to outreach and that's where I'm at". What is the one thing you would change about your job?. "I don't know about change but make better, my work life, my work and life balance. Sometimes there's days that are like twelve hours long just because there's so much work and then some shorter days of course but yeah I would definitely want to try to balance it out and make it more efficient and better." If I were to pursue a career in your profession or in this industry, what advice would you give me?. "Well in this industry let's talk just GRID because it's a nonprofit but we also do solar it would depend what department you want but for outreach specifically I would say going to management if you really want to go up going to management you really need some people skills, you need to be able to talk to basically anybody on the street, To tell them about the program things like that so definitely management will be a good one it is not necessary I know there's a lot of people at GRID that are in outreach like me they studied something completely different or don't have a degree so." How do you maintain work balance while still progressing in your career?. "Okay, that's a hard one because most of the time I don't haha but as like I said there are days that are long and I get really fixated with work sometimes where you know I wanna finish something and I'll be seven eight P.M and I'll still be working um but yeah that's actually something I wanna work on." What attributes do you believe are most critical for career advancement?. "Personally I would say liking what you do cause if you don't like it you don't wanna be in a job that you don't like, you got to love what you do, you got to put some effort into it always be willing to learn and change the way you do things cause some, you know it's not always the best or perfect way to do things and yeah just enjoy what you do." Did you go to college and if so, what did you major in?. "I did I went to college for international business and economics and I got a minor in French, so yeah, totally different than what I'm doing." What skills have been most beneficial to you? "For this position I think the management side on the contract thing and all of that has been very helpful, I wish when I was in college I would've taken more people connections like HR kind of thing, my accent sometimes really goes out and it's not good or me to communicate with people so that's definitely another thing I would have worked on when I was in college. Not my accent but proper English I would say." What can cause a bad day at work for you?. "surprises and by that I mean something went wrong or something didn't go as planned, again it's something we'll work on it's not something we would wanna get mad about or anything but yeah sometimes we get things that didn't go the way we planned or we applied for a grant and didn't get it so, I guess you can call it a bad day but we could work through it." What knowledge have you taken from your career and applied it to your life outside of work?. "I would say just the knowledge, being able to do an installation, learning about electrical has helped me a lot you know, now I'm able to open up any electrical in my home and do things that I wasn't able to before. Being able to connect with other people and you know talk about how we help orphanages and things like that has helped me get a lot of personal connections inside of work, I mean a couple panels and things like that that because now that I'm in this industry I'm able to talk about it and have constructive discussions when before I wasn't able to specially about clean mobility and our environment and all of those things".
Mentor interview transcript: What did you originally want to be when you were growing up? " I think I wanted to be a vet but its been so long, I'm almost sure I wanted to be a vet." What played your biggest role in choosing your profession today?. " I think this company was why, I was not even looking to get into renewables or nonprofit or anything like that, I went to school for international business and economics so totally different than what I'm doing but my friend who was in the workforce department she started working here and a couple months after that she was the one who told me hey you got to come check this company out, I think you will like it and I gave it a try, I started with an internship here then worked my way up and applied to outreach and that's where I'm at". What is the one thing you would change about your job?. "I don't know about change but make better, my work life, my work and life balance. Sometimes there's days that are like twelve hours long just because there's so much work and then some shorter days of course but yeah I would definitely want to try to balance it out and make it more efficient and better." If I were to pursue a career in your profession or in this industry, what advice would you give me?. "Well in this industry let's talk just GRID because it's a nonprofit but we also do solar it would depend what department you want but for outreach specifically I would say going to management if you really want to go up going to management you really need some people skills, you need to be able to talk to basically anybody on the street, To tell them about the program things like that so definitely management will be a good one it is not necessary I know there's a lot of people at GRID that are in outreach like me they studied something completely different or don't have a degree so." How do you maintain work balance while still progressing in your career?. "Okay, that's a hard one because most of the time I don't haha but as like I said there are days that are long and I get really fixated with work sometimes where you know I wanna finish something and I'll be seven eight P.M and I'll still be working um but yeah that's actually something I wanna work on." What attributes do you believe are most critical for career advancement?. "Personally I would say liking what you do cause if you don't like it you don't wanna be in a job that you don't like, you got to love what you do, you got to put some effort into it always be willing to learn and change the way you do things cause some, you know it's not always the best or perfect way to do things and yeah just enjoy what you do." Did you go to college and if so, what did you major in?. "I did I went to college for international business and economics and I got a minor in French, so yeah, totally different than what I'm doing." What skills have been most beneficial to you? "For this position I think the management side on the contract thing and all of that has been very helpful, I wish when I was in college I would've taken more people connections like HR kind of thing, my accent sometimes really goes out and it's not good or me to communicate with people so that's definitely another thing I would have worked on when I was in college. Not my accent but proper English I would say." What can cause a bad day at work for you?. "surprises and by that I mean something went wrong or something didn't go as planned, again it's something we'll work on it's not something we would wanna get mad about or anything but yeah sometimes we get things that didn't go the way we planned or we applied for a grant and didn't get it so, I guess you can call it a bad day but we could work through it." What knowledge have you taken from your career and applied it to your life outside of work?. "I would say just the knowledge, being able to do an installation, learning about electrical has helped me a lot you know, now I'm able to open up any electrical in my home and do things that I wasn't able to before. Being able to connect with other people and you know talk about how we help orphanages and things like that has helped me get a lot of personal connections inside of work, I mean a couple panels and things like that that because now that I'm in this industry I'm able to talk about it and have constructive discussions when before I wasn't able to specially about clean mobility and our environment and all of those things".