"It's a privilege to bridge the gap between academics and the world"
Birkbeck alumna and professional career coach Nerice Gietel (MSc Human Resource Development and Consultancy, 2013) has been mentoring final-year Birkbeck students for 10 years. The mum-of-one shares her own university experience, why she’d recommend the Mentoring Pathways scheme to others and how it’s kept her on her toes.
Tell us why you chose to study at Birkbeck, University of London.
I started my career in social sciences and I moved to the UK to work as a social worker, then became a manager in a domestic and sexual violence charity. I was really career-driven and I wanted to progress but I felt a bit stuck.
I came across the MSc in Human Resource Development and Consultancy at Birkbeck. I continued to work full-time to pay for the MSc which fitted around my schedule.
I used the degree to progress and it helped me to make a career change and transition into recruitment and HR business partnering, initially for a private sector company.
The course set me up for what I am doing now – it increased my credibility in career coaching, particularly regarding developing leaders.
What made you want to join the Mentoring Pathways programme?
I was already very interested in mentoring and coaching, so joining the programme in 2014 was a no-brainer. It gave me an opportunity to mentor in a formalised way. I put myself forward and was delighted to be matched with Karoline Hellmold. She was doing an MSc in Occupational Psychology and wanted, if I recall correctly, to progress into business partnering.
We worked on themes relating to networking and transitioning. There was a lot of sharing my own experiences – how I’ve been down a non-traditional career path and how to navigate it.
Since 2014, I’ve mentored five students as there was a gap during Covid.
What does being a mentor to final-year Birkbeck students mean to you?
I find it incredibly fulfilling. It stretches me as well. Over the years I have been matched with students doing different courses than what I studied and all of them want to do things that I didn’t even know about. The diversity of students, not just in terms of what they study but also countries where they come from, is something that I really value. I have never worked with a student from the same country twice - they were originally from Germany, England, India, Slovakia and Japan.
As a mentor, there’s so much you can offer students using your own skills and life experiences. It’s such a nice way for me to stay in touch with life and work in the UK. I like that sense of connection to Birkbeck.
It’s something that’s worth doing because you learn so much. It’s so important to be a sounding board for students as somebody that is independent. It’s a privilege to find yourself in that position, to be that bridge between academics and the world out there.
Nerice’s first mentee, Karoline Hellmold (MSc Occupational Psychology, 2015) now works as a senior requirements engineer at Groundhog. She recalled her time in the mentoring programme:
At the time, there were no mentors with experience in that field and Nerice was doing HR. She wasn’t a complete match for the industry I wanted to get into but she was great at giving me advice on my potential options. We were thinking through what I could do from here and how to build my own network. She drew upon her expertise and advice from her situation at the time.
I knew I wanted to take part in the mentoring programme because it’s a very small field of companies who do consultancy in occupational psychology. It’s hard for a newbie – I didn’t have lots of experience. I did get to work in the field after my MSc for ETS plc and Nerice’s support was helpful for getting me on the career ladder. I was doing both consultancy and project management. I was interested in the development side so I switched into being a business analyst.
Since leaving Birkbeck, Nerice and I have also stayed in touch and we met up a couple of years ago in Barcelona to catch up about our lives. It was nice to connect in person as we had a close relationship.
Birkbeck’s Mentoring Pathways programme connects final-year students with alumni and corporate volunteers for guidance, advice and support to navigate the steps into their future careers and professional development goals. Click here to find out more about Mentoring Pathways and how you can get involved.