Tag Archives: Mentoring

Selection Process Complete!

This morning, we selected the 50 participants in the Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development (SEED) mentoring program for the Worldwide Established Staff, January – July 2008 term. SEED received a total of 104 SEED applications, unfortunately more than the program can accommodate. Even after sorting out the twenty who were ineligible (mostly because they were too junior or their applications were not complete), today’s selection was very difficult. This group of applicants was
remarkably senior, well regarded, accomplished and particularly diverse geographically.

SEED recently ran a special term for staff in Beijing, Bangalore, Prague, and St. Petersburg, so there were fewer applicants this term from those locations. Nonetheless, this new group promises to offer a broad and valuable range of cultural
viewpoints. With so many superb candidates, we could not limit our choices to just
the 40 we had intended to accept! Next step: the term’s 15-name Mentor Wish Lists from the newly selected participants are due on 7 December.

Term Scope

SEED’s four basic General Selection Criteria are:

• 1. All Participants are in Engineering.
  2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
  3. Superior annual performance ratings are preferred.
  4. Manager support is required.

In addition, there are two specific selection criteria for Established Staff:

• 1. Hold a senior position: they must be at a Principal job level or above.
  2. Have been with Sun for two or more years as of the term start month.
     That is, this term’s applicants must have been hired before 2006.

Participant Information Summary

Location of Participants

• • 1 Australia, 2%
  • 1 Belgium, 2%
  • 3 China, 6%
  • 1 Czech Republic, 2%
  • 2 France, 4%
  • 1 Germany, 2%
  • 2 India, 4%
  • 1 Ireland, 2%
  • 1 Japan, 2%
  • 1 Norway, 2%
  • 1 Russia, 2%
  • 1 Switzerland, 2%
  • 34 USA, 68%
    • 5 Central USA, 10%
    • 7 Eastern USA, 14%
    • 22 Western USA, 44%

Division of Participants

• • 2 CTO/Sun Labs, 4%
  • 6 Microelectronics, 12%
  • 5 Sales (Global Sales and Services), 10%
  • 11 Services (Global Sales and Services), 22%
  • 19 Software Group, 38%
  • 1 Storage Group, 2%
  • 5 Systems Group, 10%
  • 1 Worldwide Operations, 2%

Gender of Participants

• • 9 Female, 18%
  • 41 Male, 82%

11 Managers, 22% (the rest are individual contributors)

10 Previously Applied to SEED, 20% (the rest are 1st time applicants)

Countries of origin for participants in this term include: Australia, Belgium, Canada,
China, Czech Republic, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Japan,
Korea, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia,
Spain, Switzerland, and the USA

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at

http://research.sun.com/SEED/