Burcu Kilic
Final Year LCF BA FDT Surface Textile Student
FirstMove Programme applicant
How mentoring can help
My first mentoring session was very exciting and useful. Our mentor Iryna took the time to first find out our specific ambitions and really focused our sessions by making us specify our plans for the future. This helped me think clearly for the first time about what I actually wanted from my career. She was very thorough and took these sessions very seriously, if we had interests outside of her field of expertise she would research into these areas to help us in our development, this really made me feel that she cared about my individual progression.
The field I want to work in primarily is textiles, so I’m specifically looking at textile companies or for high street companies with textile positions. We were given a list of textile fair shows across the world where textile companies often exhibit their work so we could do hands on research. My mentor also suggested I contact them by phone rather than by email, as emails and posts were generally ignored. She had advised to research the company extensively if an interview did come up, as this would show our interest in the company which employers like.
We were given interview tips and techniques which were amazingly useful to have. Equally as helpful were the little things she went over, like tips on how to present our work in the most effective way. It’s strange how things such as breaking your sketchbook/portfolio work into parts showing different skills – such as knowledge in knit, embroidery and print – seem so obvious once they are pointed out to you!
Iryna also gave us contact details for a textile company who had kindly agreed give us valuable insights into how their company worked, how they professionally presented their work to other companies as well as what they expected from their employees. This information has helped us prepare and feel ready before we start applying for jobs.
She asked us to email her in detail about what we hoped to learn from her experience and how she could help more for our next session. Researching more companies from the advice she had given and talking to her about my research is what I plan to do for my next mentoring session.
I have learnt so much from this session and didn’t realise how helpful and giving a mentor could be, I would recommend the FirstMove Programme to anybody who needs some guidance in the scary world of work.
To see Burcu’s work, view her Showtime portfolio