Why I Started Personalized Mentorship for Soft Skills and Professional Growth

For a long time, I had been noticing the same recurring pattern among students and people preparing to enter the job market:

They were motivated. They took courses, read books, thought about their future, and even experimented with different AI tools. Yet they still did not know what their next step should be.

Their problem was not a lack of information.

In fact, most of them were overwhelmed by it:

• Which skill should I learn?
• Which course should I start?
• Is programming right for me?
• How can I earn an income using AI?
• How should I build my resume?
• What is LinkedIn actually useful for?
• How do I enter the job market?
• How can I discover what I am good at?
• Should I prioritize passion or income?
• What happens if I make the wrong choice?

Every question led them to dozens of videos, courses, books, and conflicting opinions. They gained more information, but making a decision became even harder.

That was when I reached an important conclusion:

That realization marked the beginning of my mentorship journey.

A Decision That Was Not Really Sudden

From the outside, it may look as though I suddenly decided to run mentorship sessions alongside my work in frontend development. In reality, the decision grew out of years of professional experience, my career change from Huawei to frontend development, and my conversations with many different people.

I spent several years working at Huawei and on large enterprise projects. My responsibilities were not limited to technical delivery. There were many occasions when two people or two teams could not fully understand one another, and I had to help them establish a shared language.

Later, when I moved into frontend development, I encountered the same problem again.

Knowing a framework, programming language, or tool was not enough. A professional also needed to be able to:

• understand the problem correctly,
• ask clear questions,
• present the results of their work,
• receive feedback,
• communicate with a team,
• manage their time,
• balance learning with execution,
• make decisions in uncertain situations,
• and take responsibility for their output.

These abilities are rarely treated seriously in technical courses. Yet in the workplace, they are often what separates an average contributor from someone others can genuinely rely on.

The Real Gap Between Education and the Job Market

In Iran, many people spend years in the education system and still enter the job market without understanding some of the most basic professional practices.

A student may have excellent grades but still not know how to:

• introduce themselves in three minutes,
• write a professional email,
• research a job opportunity,
• tailor their resume to a specific role,
• ask an experienced professional a useful question,
• report the outcome of a project,
• manage a meeting,
• distinguish credible information from superficial content,
• or use AI without becoming intellectually dependent on it.

This gap is not necessarily the individual's fault.

Much of our education has focused on memorization, exams, and credentials. There has been far less opportunity to experiment, present ideas, fail, receive feedback, and adjust course.

Economic pressure has also pushed many young people to search for the fastest route to income before they have had the chance to understand themselves or develop meaningful skills.

At the same time, social media constantly exposes them to people who claim to have achieved a high income within a few months. They see the visible success but not the time, failures, relationships, starting capital, or life circumstances behind it.

The result is a combination of anxiety, comparison, and rushed decisions.

Someone begins learning programming today, becomes interested in digital marketing the following week, moves on to trading, and a few days later decides to become a prompt engineer.

The problem is not that any of these fields are inherently bad.

The problem is that the choices are being made without self-awareness, experimentation, or a clear direction.

What I Saw in the First Sessions

During the first free sessions I held with several people, one thing became especially clear: every person arrived with a different challenge.

One participant was a dentistry student—responsible, hardworking, and academically capable, but struggling with communication, time management, and turning knowledge into action. They wanted to become a successful surgeon, build a business, and use AI in their professional life, but they did not yet know which skill to prioritize.

Another participant was a language teacher who enjoyed learning and had experience in sales and working with students, but felt deeply anxious about their financial future. They had read many books about personal growth, money, and success, yet still did not know how to turn that knowledge into a viable path to income.

One person needed to build a professional identity.

Another needed focus and action.

One needed to strengthen their communication skills.

Another needed to move beyond perfectionism and create something imperfect but real.

That experience confirmed one principle for me:

A course that is valuable for one person may be little more than a waste of time for someone else.

That is why the mentorship I designed is not a prerecorded course with a fixed curriculum. Each person's path should be shaped by their circumstances, goals, abilities, time constraints, strengths, areas for improvement, and progress.

Why Learning One Skill Is Not Enough

Suppose someone wants to learn how to work with AI.

I can introduce a few tools, explain the principles of prompt engineering, and give them a set of exercises.

But if that person cannot:

• ask the right question,
• evaluate the output,
• verify the source,
• manage their time,
• present the result,
• or do anything beyond copying an AI-generated answer,

then learning the tool will create very little value for them.

The same is true of programming, content creation, digital marketing, and virtually any other skill.

Tools change.

Fundamental skills remain.

The ability to think, ask questions, conduct research, communicate, make decisions, and turn information into action is not tied to any particular software or profession.

People who develop these abilities can adapt when their circumstances change.

What Mentorship Means to Me

To me, mentorship is not about handing someone ready-made answers.

My role is not to tell a person exactly which career to choose, where to work, or what decision to make.

The goal is to help them gradually become able to:

• understand themselves more clearly,
• analyze their options more effectively,
• define criteria for their decisions,
• explore different paths through low-risk experiments,
• learn from experience and feedback,
• and ultimately become less dependent on other people's opinions.

A mentor is not supposed to remain beside someone forever.

Successful mentorship should eventually enable a person to think more independently and move forward on their own.

It is the familiar principle:

The goal is not to give someone a fish; it is to teach them how to fish.

What We Work On During This Journey

Self-Awareness and Decision-Making

We examine strengths, areas for improvement, values, motivations, behavioral patterns, and the way a person makes decisions.

Self-awareness should not be reduced to a handful of personality labels. A personality test cannot fully define a human being. What matters is examining how a person actually behaves in different situations.

Communication and Presentation Skills

Many people are capable, but they do not know how to communicate their value.

We work on professional introductions, presentations, body language, active listening, asking better questions, connecting with experienced people, and building a professional network.

Thinking and Problem-Solving

Not every simple decision needs to become a research project.

We need to learn which decisions are reversible, which involve significant risk, and how much time and information each one deserves.

Learning and Research

Searching effectively, evaluating sources, managing knowledge, and turning raw information into a useful output are foundational skills in this process.

The goal is not to collect information endlessly.

Information should ultimately lead to a decision, an experience, or an action.

Artificial Intelligence and Modern Tools

In this process, AI is not a shortcut for avoiding thought.

A person needs to learn how to:

• write an effective question,
• provide context and define constraints,
• evaluate the output,
• identify AI errors,
• verify sources,
• and complete the result with their own knowledge and analysis.

Career Development

The goal is not to recommend whichever career happens to be trending.

Instead, we explore how someone can combine their current skills, interests, experience, and market needs to build a realistic professional path.

Sometimes the best decision is not a complete career change, but adding a complementary skill to an existing area of expertise.

Short-Term or Long-Term Results?

One of the questions I was asked during these sessions was:

“Will this mentorship help me in the short term or the long term?”

My answer is both—but the outcomes will be different.

In the short term, a person can learn to:

• introduce themselves more effectively,
• research with greater purpose,
• manage their time,
• use AI more effectively,
• make simple decisions faster,
• and produce more professional work.

In the medium term, they can:

• choose a complementary skill,
• complete small projects,
• build their resume and LinkedIn profile,
• and test different paths to income.

In the long term, they can:

• develop a stronger professional identity,
• make more informed career decisions,
• build a better professional network,
• and use their skills to create larger opportunities.

But one point must be completely clear:

Why I Take This Work Seriously

I do not see these sessions as a side product or a general-purpose class.

Every person brings a different challenge. To design the next session, I need to review our conversation, extract the key points, define appropriate exercises, and assess their progress.

For that reason, the capacity of this mentorship program will remain limited.

My goal is not to hold as many sessions as possible.

My goal is for each person to reach the end of the process and see a meaningful change in how they think, make decisions, present themselves, learn, and shape their professional path.

In the future, I also plan to develop this process through a dedicated platform where each participant can access a personal dashboard, review session summaries and assignments, track their progress, organize resources and projects, and gradually build a professional resume.

Before building any platform, however, the mentorship process itself needs to be tested and refined in the real world.

Technology should support a sound process, not replace one.

A Final Note

I started this mentorship because I felt that many students and early-career professionals need more than another course. They need a map, honest feedback, and a safe space in which to experiment.

They are capable people who have not yet learned how to communicate their abilities.

People who consume a great deal of information but take very little action.

People who fear the future because they cannot see a clear path ahead.

And people who remain trapped in thought among dozens of options instead of moving forward.

This mentorship was not designed to provide quick answers.

It was designed to help someone ask better questions, make better decisions, present themselves more effectively, and build their professional path with greater awareness.

The result may be a new skill, a project, an internship opportunity, a stronger resume, or even a completely different perspective on the future.

But the starting point is always the same:

If you would like to learn how the program works, see the mentorship details and how to request an introductory session.