Peter Ryan, Sun’s Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Services
(GSS), just sent out the long-awaited announcement for SEED’s newest pilot
mentoring term. This term was specifically created for worldwide Engineering and Technical staff in the GSS division. Some of the GSS pilot Selection Criteria and Scope are unique to this term; some are the same as for a regular SEED term.
Hal Stern, GSS Distinguished Engineer and Senior Vice President, and 12-time
SEED mentor is co-sponsoring this pilot term with Peter. Sun’s CTO and EVP
Greg Papadopoulos has been SEED’s executive sponsor since 2001.
GSS Pilot Term Dates
This new SEED Pilot Program will run from January – June 2009. Applications will be accepted starting 27 October 2008. All application materials are due 7 November 2008.
Potential program applicants should read and think about the program and talk
with their managers between now and when the application forms open on 27 October 2008.
SEED’s General Selection Criteria:
- All Participants are in Engineering.
- Only regular Sun employees may participate.
- Superior annual performance ratings are preferred.
- Manager support is required.
There are additional criteria specific to this term – see the SunWeb
GSS SEED term home page for details.
Why should I apply?
The SEED program works with you to increase your value to Sun and your satisfaction with Sun, and thus the likelihood that you will become an even more productive and recognized contributor. By linking you with an appropriate mentor and exposing you to the prominent talent in Sun, the program will help you broaden your skills, and increase your connections to the Engineering community as well as to the rest of Sun. One of the long term effects of SEED should be a larger pool of diverse talent for Sun to draw on for the highest technical and management positions. This should result in a more varied and valuable set of solutions to the difficult problems before us as a company.
In most SEED mentoring terms, over 70% of Mentors are executives: Vice Presidents, Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, Principal Engineers or Directors. (In the 2008-2009 Established Staff term, 84% of the Mentors were executives.) Since 2001, the SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. Individual experiences will vary. GSS staff have participated in the regular all-Engineering worldwide SEED mentoring program since 2002.
More?
More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program
is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/
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