Led by a team from the Career Center, the Women in Business Initiative (WIBI) is entering its eighth year of connecting driven, career-focused women with the resources to help them achieve their professional goals. Applications for the program will remain open until this coming Tuesday, January 31st.
WIBI functions in two ways: as a mentorship to connect students with professionals in their field of choice and as a partnership with the Career Center to provide students with the professional knowledge necessary to take advantage of the mentor relationship. As Susan Bauer, Director of Employer and Alumni Relations at the Career Center, says, “There is a level of self-awareness where the student is seeking out a mentor and recognizes the value of having a mentor. But it is so much more than being paired with a mentor… The program is there to create a well-rounded WIBI graduate.”
The team behind WIBI hopes that the large mentorship component of the program will help expose students to the power of a mentor. Dr. Diane Safer, Assistant Director of the Career Center, explains the value of a mentor as having “someone there to pave the way… [a student can] gain knowledge about how to get where she wants to go from the mentor and [a mentor] is there to have the mentee’s back.” In today’s tough business world, an expert in a student’s field who wants to help her achieve to success can be a great asset. In fact, the Career Center deliberately encourages students to look for mentors beyond professors and advisors within YU. “Mentorship is like building your cabinet, just as our president is building his cabinet right now. Students should have all types of mentors to guide them through their career and their lives,” said Bauer.
In order to find the most effective and impactful mentors for each student, the WIBI team considers each applicant’s interests and goals, and then connects the student with an alumna in the middle to late stage of her career. Dana Simpson, Career Advisor and Recruitment Coordinator in the Career Center, says, “It’s a ripple effect for your network. Once you have one mentor, one relationship with someone, you have a window into their whole world.” Navigating the relationship with a mentor, as the Career Center will help a student do, can lead to her next job or opportunity.
As a career-building opportunity, the WIBI mentorship provides students with a beneficial service, in conjunction with the services already offered by the Career Center, such as resume revisions, mock interviews and professional workshops.
The application process to join WIBI is simple. Interested students can access the application on the YU CareerLink under “Documents.” Then, WIBI applicants can email the application, along with a copy of their resume, to ccrecruiting@yu.edu. WIBI also encourages alumni interested in mentoring to contact Susan Bauer at the Career Center at susan.bauer@yu.edu.