Mentoring in Europe

On 22 November, the SEED program staff selected 32 of the 63
applicants from Dublin, Grenoble, Hamburg, and Prague. We had
intended to pick only 25. The new SEED participants are
now putting together their Mentor Wish Lists, due this Friday
(2 December) and then we start the matching process. The actual
term will run January-June 2006.

One of the surprising things about the participant selection
discussions this time was the overall strength and seniority of
the group as a whole. In the last world-wide term, 29% of the
applicants disqualified. That is, one of the required elements
of the application materials (resume, letter of recommendation)
was missing or their ratings were below the program’s minimum
for consideration. For this Dublin, Grenoble, Hamburg, and Prague
term, only 11% disqualified. Having such an evenly strong and
qualified group made the selection much harder:
there were few easy differentiations. This is one reason why we
ended up picking 7 more participants than the 25 we originally intended.

A second surprising thing about the participant selection
discussions this time was that we ended up picking all 11 applicants
from Grenoble, France. While we no intention to divide acceptances evenly
between the 4 sites or proportionally based on site headcount, we also
did not intend to favor one site so strongly. We have been reviewing
the data since we made the final selection to see what might have caused
this unintentional pattern. What happened:

• Distribution of SEED Applications by location:
  • Czech Republic: 24 [ 38% ]
  • France: 11 [ 17% ]
  • Germany: 18 [ 29% ]
  • Ireland: 10 [ 16% ]
• Distribution of SEED Participants by location:
  • Czech Republic: 8 [ 25% ]
  • France: 11 [ 34% ]
  • Germany: 9 [ 28% ]
  • Ireland: 4 [ 12% ]

After looking at the data, three measurements seem to answer the
question of why France did so much better in this particular SEED
selection. They are:

1. None of France’s applications were disqualified/withdrawn
2. A comparatively larger percentage of France’s applicants
   had two or three “Superb-1” annual performance ratings in the last 3 years

3. All of France’s applicants were at principal seniority or higher

Each of these gave France a slight advantage. It seems that the combination
of doing better in all three areas made the big difference. The analyses of the
staff patterns at all 4 sites that we did before the application period did
not indicate any strong advantage of one site in seniority or ratings over
the others. That is, all 4 sites are admirably senior and well qualified.
I think this pattern is particular to this group of
SEED applicants rather than indicating anything about the 4 sites overall.
We will continue to review what might have caused these patterns.

We are now getting ready for our next SEED term, focussed on Engineering staff
in St. Petersburg and Tel Aviv (Herzliya). This second Europe-Middle East term
will run March-September 2006. I have informed the St. Petersburg and Tel Aviv
site managers of these analyses and we will see what changes this makes (if
any) in the patterns of their applications.