So, hello, everyone who has joined me in this particular session, challenges of the mentoring it specialist and female it specialist. So my topic is really quite interesting just because there is a huge issue that I would like to emphasize today.And it's very, very close to me and it's I sometimes I take relate personally. So it's really a problem. Maybe we don't really have any issues with it, mentoring with overall career, female career. But unfortunately, there is a real problem because um when I was, when I started my career, I did a lot of mistakes in the beginning. I was not really effective. And right now, I like after 20 years in my career, I could achieve much higher results if I didn't make so many mistakes. So today, we would like to talk about the challenges that girls, female specialists have in the career growth in learning and managerial stuff. So let's start. My name is Yulia Marinovich and I'm an it project manager and even talking like that, it's really difficult sometimes for me to emphasize and to share my experience and my advices and my achievements because I feel not really comfortable comfortable with sharing what I achieved in general.

I'm a technical interviewer, a certified one even I'm a mentor for other technical interviewers. I'm a member of the community for the assessment in my company. I have a lot of public talks and a lot of trainings and a lot of dozens of mentees, mostly female 18 ee but still I, I don't feel that I'm, I'm the right person to share my knowledge with somebody because uh female, all um fans uh face with issues with imperfections and lack of self-confidence.

Unfortunately, and today, I would like to focus here on the challenges that female specialists face during their career development. So let me start. It. Is it overall a problem right now, girls really have a lot of opportunities and we can do really a lot, we can achieve a lot and that's no problem with different career l um opportunities positions. Every third world is open for us and it's getting better and better. And I really appreciate that anyway, the higher up the corporate leader, the fewer female you can meet in it still today is 2020. And regarding to reports, the numbers are getting better and higher. And among and executives and senior management there like 20 plus percent of women and it's great and among managers, we can call a 2737 sorry, a percent of manager staff and really like that. I took these numbers out of internet catalyst.org you can look for others. But I believe the picture is quite the same. So we still have really the not the great picture when it comes to senior management and top management. But why? So why do so? Mm So small amount comparable, small amount of women um you can meet in very among uh steering committees and boards of senior managers. Let me bring an example. I'm a left handed person, but when I was a child, I was taught to use my right hand.

And right now I use my right hand in order to write to do all the stuff to brush my teeth overall in general, in average everyday life. But you know, I don't do it in a perfect way. And it took me much more time and effort to write down with my right hand because my natural behavior would be right in with my left hand. You still can't really afford it. Nobody. Nothing really stops me in order to use not baby natural, uh not a wrong hand in order to um to write because it's still, it's still achievable. Why not? It's still opportunity but you can do that. You can really try that, try to use your left hand to brush your teeth, try to use your left hand in order to start writing with really good writing skill, it will take you much more time, much more effort, much more energy, much more focusing in order to achieve the same result, the same, I believe with female managers when we're talking about achieving and climbing the corporate labor, literary um let of female um face with a lot of issues and a lot of troubles and that prevent us for to get to reaching the top.

And I would like to focus on some particular issues that I face during my experience when I'm mentoring it girls as a mentor. So let's start with the challenges that I can observe when I mentoring female specialist. The first problem is imperfection. So sometimes girls really difficult has difficulties to accept that we are not perfect that we don't really need to learn. For example, SQL is a very, very complicated queries, you know, with 80% of knowledge, you give some level of knowledge, you can solve really 80% of tasks and problems. But girls tend has a tendency to deep so deep. So to dive so deep in order to be like feel an expert, they need much more convenience for themselves to say that I'm an expert in scale. For example, sometimes it's difficult for a female to control our emotions, especially when it comes to managerial stuff. Yes, we are taught and we are like we are really grown up like emotional people, but sometimes we need to stop being so emotional and focus on the facts on the deliverables, on the particular result and fear that we have should not stop us. For example, I have a fear to, to stalk around in front of you. Probably a lot of people will see will watch this video and I have a fear. It's really scary for me, but it should not stop me.

It should really help me to achieve a new level. It should uh show me that something is not out of my comfort zone. And fear really shows us that there is a space we can grow. Sometimes we need to be a little bit bossy instead of polite and convenient in order to be a manager. Because female specialists and female, overall, female in general, we tend to be focused on relationship on relation with other people, people to be good to keep the level of empathy. Uh On the other hand, male specialists and male woman general tend to be focused on facts. So we need to understand our weak or maybe um areas where we need to grow and develop and um get a bit more um balanced person. Also, we need to serve the borders, level of empathy that we already have. Uh somehow expect that we take people very close to us. We take their own, their problems, very close to our heart. We try to understand but we need to set borders. We don't need to accept everything and everybody, if you would like to achieve a career, some career top of our career, we need to set full stop in one point and say no there is a stop. There is my private territory.

There is, here is the area where I'm confident and there is my responsibility to make decision here and here, I would like also to emphasize that the same issues I face with girls out of South America, out of us. And we so different, but we still have very similar issues. And I would like to go further to career challenges. Um In Korea, we don't really uh be afraid apart of even scaring uh new opportunities apart from be afraid to apply for Children position, except maybe something that is right now beyond us, above our expertise, it's uh it's all about imperfections. We don't believe we really occupy the right place. So my please, to you accept all the opportunities that you meet at your career, even if you're scared, if you have a fear, just understand that it's out of your comfort zone. And fear means only that you ha you have a space and room for growth and that's really great. Analyze your strong and big sides. Uh Think about that. If you are good in relationship, you need to focus as a manager on delivery and facts and basically re result side.

So think about something that you, that stops you or prevents you to get a managerial position uh from out of my experience, girls, sometimes think of some excuses. I'm a female. I have kids. It cannot be right now. Focused on my work. And that's why I would rather skip the opportunity, skip a great proposition in order to stay, to be a good mom, a good wife. But in reality, we can manage both. There is no excuses. We can manage both and family and a career. And there are a lot of different examples where we can see that the top manager can be both a successful career. Uh a successful career breaker, I can say and still a good month for the, for your kids. It's first, it's our stereotype in our heads and yes, a lot of imperfection in our world still. But the first thing you need to do, you need to overcome the stereotypes and limits in your head in my head. And then it was the first step that will help you. You don't really need to be focused. You should be either like a top manager with boss staff, um like uh different heroes we see in our movies or we can be a good mom, stay at home with kids and a good wife. The in general, we can do both.

We don't need to like put some labels on us. Uh It's your decision. Do you want to stay at home or do you, do you want to get a great successful career or you would like to somehow uh try to combine that role. It's just your decision and nobody should stop you and my calling to sum it up. Uh I feel like in bringing their emphasizing the problem that right now in a lot of it, corporation when it comes to leadership and managerial courses, the problem is that that courses are focused on a male specialist. Let me bring an example when it comes to teaching specialists uh to resolve a conflict. We teach people normally how to listen to one side arguments, how to listen to the other side, how to make common conclusion, maybe something uh think about negotiation. But in general, for female, it's not an issue. It's even easier for female to listen to people with level, high level of empathy. We're really good in listening other people, we're really good in building relationship. But what is difficult for us, it's to make a decision to stop the arguing at the end of the day and say here is my decision and with that decision, we are moving forward and that is the issue and we need to teach our female specialist that approach, we don't need to teach everybody the same.

We need to, to divide. If the person had a tendency to be focused on facts, deliverables, timelines and maybe like that kind of bossy behavior, then we need to teach them other side emotional relationship and empathy. But if we see that this specialist in general, it's female is very common. It's female specialist um has really good level of empathy, good relations with the team. We don't need to teach them, how to provide 1 to 1 meetings, how to listen to your team, how to motivate people. We need to teach them other ways we need to teach, to be aligned with timeline, be really responsible for our decision, make that decision be accountable for them. Don't be afraid to take responsibility in that way, we can make the female specialist much more successful in uh getting to managerial stuff. My calling is to bring this point to our corporation. I mean, it corporation, I would like to adopt and change this leadership courses in order to be uh compiled with female professional issues. Also, I would like to emphasize that different projects could, could require different managers in one project.

We really need focused oriented, facts oriented managers, female male style, I could say in different projects, some projects we can have different relationship with customer and we are focused on um relationship part and here maybe female manager could be more successful. And my calling apart from changing the leadership courses approach is to help other specialists to become successful in their, in their managerial position. And the end of the day, it's really difficult to wash our hands with just one hand left or right. We need to wash it with both. And that's my idea and I would like to see one good day that courses in it corporation are adopted that female specialists have really equal chances to get to the top and the top manager staff, we see 50% of female specialists and here am I? Thank you for your time. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Maybe you have some questions. I'm really pleased to answer all of them. Thank you very much. I don't know if it's possible to, to get them here. Unfortunately, I don't see them. But anyway, have a really nice day. Uh help the female specialists that around you, that you can really share your experience, help other courses. If you have influence on the courses for leadership, for managerial staff, uh to be adopted for a female specialist, it really make a difference.

Thank you very much and have a good day. See you.