How Creditas’ Mentorship Program got started, and how I got involved!
Since 2018, Creditas’ technology department has been running an internal mentorship program focused on helping various women work towards career objectives. Running a project like this requires a lot of focus and determination, which is why I’m going to share some of the things we’ve learned throughout this initiative.
When I first started at Creditas and stumbled upon this Mentorship program, I quickly became interested in learning more about how it worked.
How did it all start?
It all started in 2017, when we felt like we needed to grow our team of devs. We carried out some interviews and hired a junior dev and a junior trainee, which is when one of our devs, Camila Campos, saw an opportunity and discussed it with Leonardo Andreucci, VP of Engineering.
If we’re contracting junior devs and junior trainees, why not orient these openings towards women, to engage more women in tech?
Leonardo Andreucci saw that it would make total sense to adopt this feedback, to increase the recruitment of women 🚀
Thereafter, Camila Campos, Karoline Leite, @anaflavia, Felipe Albuquerque, Alex Kawaharada and Fernanda Santarelli came together to take up this challenge of hiring more women. They ended up starting a project called “Hiring Minas” (in english, Hiring Women).
Through this project we became acquainted with some other social inclusion programs, like {reprograma} (reprogram) and Laboratória (Laboratory).
We visited {reprograma} and invited the program to get to know Creditas. When the women of {reprograma} came to visit us, we talked a little about Creditas, what we do, and what our culture is like — we talked about how our environment revolves around sharing expertise and experiences, tech talks, meetups, event participation, constant feedback, one on ones, 007, and various other initiatives.
Afterwards, we received an invite from {reprograma} to participate in an event called Speed hiring, which connects {reprograma} alumni with companies in the market.
The event, which debuted in the first semester of 2018, was composed of more than 20 companies interviewing 30 of the program’s first graduates, in partnership with the Facebook group Estação Hack — source https://reprograma.com.br/speed-hiring
If you want to know more, check out this link.
Speed hiring works as a 5-minute interview with each {reprograma} alumni. After the interview there is a *calibration* to identify the candidates who were best engaged with our values and culture.
We then return to Creditas to analyze the teams, in order to know which of them had the capacity to absorb people beginning their careers, to mentor and develop them. The available teams did interviews with each of the women to align their expectations with the team’s.
Why mentorship?
Social programs serve as a segway to various topics related to technology, but we understood that we, as Creditas, needed to set up a development plan and follow-up on it closely; do 1:1s, pair programming, monitor people’s evolution, identify possible places for improvement, and align expectations. So we decided to set up a mentorship program.
Following-up
With the passing of time, we collected feedback to understand if we were on the right path and reaching our goals.
I will give an overview of the feedback we received after the first 15 days and then 90 days later.
First 15 days
Pains
Fear, Anxiety, and Uncertainty
Gains
Happiness, Achievement, Luck, Gratitude / Accommodation
How Creditas helped
Opportunity and Autonomy
How things could be better
Communication, Clarity
90 days later
Pains
Lack of a formal structure, Lack of perspective, Ambiguity
Gains
Visibility, Deploy, Relief, and Consolidation
How Creditas helped
Confidence, Dedication, Resilience, and Continuous Improvement
How things could be better
Focused studies and Pedagogic training
How did it all start for me?
During my first week of onboarding at Creditas, I decided to stay late because there was going to be a meeting with the women of {reprograma} and I wanted to participate. The problem was that I hadn’t noticed that the meeting was just for women 😶, and upon arriving, I got a little uncomfortable, since I felt like I was invading their space. However, I was very well received — it was sensational.
The women that Creditas had hired for the program were sharing their experiences, in other places they had worked and at Creditas. Participating in this event was an unforgettable experience, and several of them recounted experiences that left me emotional, thinking to myself “wow, these women are incredible”. Then and there, I told myself “I need to be a part of this”.
Currently, we are 6 mentors and 6 mentees
Monique Oliveira mentored by Vagner Ferreira Santos🚀🚀🚀
Milena de Carvalho Martins mentored by Daniel Silva Santos🚀🚀🚀
Natalia Kikuchi mentored by Rodrigo Pontes 🚀🚀 🚀
Joseline Corrêa Souza mentored by André Casimiro 🚀🚀🚀
Mary Francis mentored by Edmo Lima 🚀🚀🚀
Natalya Peixoto mentored by Rafael Antonio Lucio 🚀🚀🚀
Everyday, we learn more through this initiative and are continuously improving its processes to ensure its success.
Learn a little more about the programs
Reprograma: a social impact initiative that focuses on teaching programming to cis and trans women that don’t have the resources and/or the oppurtunity to learn how to program. Learn some more here.
Laboratória: has the principal objective of being the main source of female talent in technology from Latin America to the rest of the world, in order to transform the futures of thousands of women in the market. Get to know more here.
Interested in working with us? We’re always looking for people passionate about technology to join our crew! You can check out our openings here.
