In These Tough Times, I Found Virtual Coaching as a Way to Give Back - Can You Join Me?

It was the middle of the week and the weekend was coming. Normally, that would bring hosts of events, and errands to be done. But in the age of “Shelter in Place”, I wanted to give back in some way.  But how?

Kindness. Giving. Sacrifice. These traits are not lost. They are only beginning to rise up. Stop and look. You'll find them. And many, many of you are asking how you can help.

So, I was thrilled when I scrolled through LinkedIn, and a note from Sean Ellis, Author of Hacking Growth and currently Interim Head of Growth at Turazo, caught my attention.  He wrote to say they were hosting an online career fair for The Women's Network (https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/thewomensnetwork/). He asked if I could give away some of my time to a set of 20-minute 1:1 virtual coaching calls to help college women navigating their professional paths in these uncertain times.

I was all in.  I discussed it with our AWS Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Kelly McGill, and she was completely behind the idea. Kelly is leading new ways for inclusion to be a strong positive experience for all. She encouraged me to write this blog!

The company hosting the event is Turazo. This startup’s mission is to create a world where talent and opportunity discover each other in a seamless and empowering way. Turazo was created by an Olympic gold medalist and world champion athletes. Truth in advertising, they are also using Heroku and Amazon Web Services. 

It took less than five minutes to create a profile and immediately five women agreed to chat with me – they were from California, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and New York. The women were amazing, and were just four of the 1100 students that have signed up for mentoring with over 115 coaches (you can still sign up! https://www.onlinecareerfair.org/stem ).  I left every meeting so jazzed and I learned a lot from them too. For instance, I found it fascinating that most of the technical women wanted to try careers that bridged between technology and business like a role of Product Management.

One of the women that I had time to chat with was Yamini Sharma, a junior at UC Davis in Computing Engineering. We actually chatted for 30 minutes as she shared her dreams with me. She has already accomplished some of them, as she is the external Vice President, Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at UC Davis. She ended our session by saying:  “It was absolutely lovely speaking with you and learning from your years of experience! This conversation and session have inspired me to pursue my goals with more belief, clarity and determination. I hope to secure a Summer 2020 internship in the arena of Autonomous Vehicles and use my machine learning and computer vision skills to help build a project. This foundation will immensely help me in pursuing my passion in the future and honing my technical skills as a future Engineer.”  I know she will do well, and we’ve now become connected on LinkedIn.

I also met with Julia Reichel, who is a Sophomore from Columbia, and has already had a great start at her career.  Last summer she was an intern in Israel for a Venture Capitalist(VC) in their IT department. This was a first of a kind experience for the company, who had only had interns before in marketing, and it enabled Julia to design her own intern. I was the third coach that Julia had spoken with and she really valued the process. Her focus was what experiences she needed to gain to make it to a Product Management role. She was lucky, as the company that she chose to intern with this summer will switch the role to all virtual. She told me that the "Online Career Fair has been an extremely valuable resource for me because it allowed me to connect with professional leaders throughout different industries, who were happy to share their personal experiences with me, as well as answer all of my questions. I met with four individuals on separate occasions, who happened to hold four unique positions at their respective companies. I can honestly say that I finished every meeting feeling inspired and motivated. I highly recommend all students to utilize this platform to build relationships with professionals, and for professionals to sign up to be coaches and mentors for driven and passionate students.”

Another young woman was from University of Southern California, Catherine Turner. She already knows an incredible number of computer languages and has had some cool experiences like interning at NASA last summer.  She explained that her internship this year had gone away as the start-up now cannot support an intern. Her experience with the Online Career Fair was awesome.  She ended by telling me that "The Online Career Fair made it easy to book virtual sessions with and learn from accomplished coaches in a variety of fields. For me, it served as both an educational and networking experience." 

And I met with Nina Metviner, a very articulate freshman from University of Madison in Wisconsin. As a freshman, she knew precisely what she was looking for – a role to blend technology and business together. Her father is in IT in investment banking and she joined a club to learn about applying technology.  I loved her energy and freshness in her approach to clubs, and learning. She told me that “our meeting was valuable and encouraging, as it allowed me to connect with a successful woman in a male-dominated field. I enjoyed learning about her role at AWS and how her work is being incorporated into day to day operations during this pandemic. Sandy also provided suggestions for what I can do to keep my career hopes on track during this time filled with uncertainty.”

And last but not least, I met with Sahar Sami, who is a freshman at Cornell.  She has known forever that she wanted to focus on STEM and chose Cornell for its co-op program. She received early acceptance and she is already focusing on Data Science, one of the most needed roles today, and according to the World Economic Forum, for the next 10 years. We discussed how she can showcase “data science” as her personal brand and enable her to leverage business and technology as she moves her career forward. She told me that "the Online Career Fair can revolutionize the way that career fairs are run. Employers and students network travel-free, allowing students to have larger access to employers and reducing our carbon footprint. Rather than speaking just a few minutes to a recruiter, I enjoyed being able to engage in thoughtful discussions with my coaches and receive personalized advice." 

We are going to be in great hands for the future of STEM. I can think of no better women than those I met. I’d love to hire all of them!

I think Turazo said it best on their website. Our accomplishments were not achieved in silos. We relied on coaches, bosses, teammates, classmates, family, and mentors. We relied on other people.

So, as my mentor, Ted Childs, told me, always reach back and pull someone forward. Let’s support this cause and bring that same passion for guidance, shared knowledge, and the power of connection, to dramatically improve the next generation now.