Mentorship
Paid Sessions - Available
I help you with your portfolio, presentation, and interview prep closely by creating a custom plan. We discuss how to maximize your impact and value in articulating design rationale and decisions. I've had 4/4 mentees land jobs at FAANG after sessions.
If you are interested and wondering how I can help,
email me at misscatlo@gmail.com
Through the majority of my design career over 18 years, I never had a mentor to guide me. Life was my lesson, navigating alone through trial and tribulations. Studies show the majority of people understand the value of mentorship, but only 14% actually get one. I was one of those people.
In 2020, I was an official mentor at Thinkful's UI/UX Bootcamp Program. I had 3 full-time mentees where I developed 1 designer from non-design to working at IBM.
In 2022, I've conducted 137+ hours of 1:1 sessions with 16 designers. 8 had successful career changes with an avg increase of 261% ($62k) in salary.
In 2023, I'm the Top 1% for August and the Top 10 Female Mentor on ADPList (out of 18,338). Year-to-date, I've dedicated 2,465 hours (~3.3 months) free mentorship to the community.
1:1's are not scalable because of the heavy demand for my time, I have multiple formats to expand my impact on the community. This includes Adobe partnership with live speaking events, 3-day design workshops, self-service with Notion, and a weekly newsletter.
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picasso
Mentee Guidelines
In 2023, I do office hours every Friday for 30 min on ADPList. Before the session, please submit the agenda in advance. Having a list of topics to discuss helps maximize the time and know when a topic is "done".
What types of topics are longer than 30 minutes?
- Design Portfolio Review. A 30-minute conversation is typically insufficient to give you effective, actionable feedback. Most of these conversations run over 1.5 hours because a deep dive is required for improvement. We can talk high level, which may or may not be valuable, since reading and review takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.
- Troubleshooting Job Search. Questions about interview loops for Facebook & Amazon. Questions about deep-dive in whiteboarding exercises, interview process, Q&A, and advice on how to get through them in detail.
I recommend booking a 1:1 session instead.
Principles
- Reciprocate with a coffee, review, or success story.
I am offering 18 years of experience at no cost to you. If you are happy with our talk, tell me your success story on ADPList or Linkedin to solidify my profile with the community. A practical way of showing support for me is financially, buy me a coffee or be a subscriber for my newsletter. - Feedback is a gift that requires reflection and action.
Feedback is a gift of growth only if you are open to receiving it. Harvard Business Review has proven that feedback doesn't help unless there is understanding. My mentorship style is radical candor, which means challenging directly and caring personally. When you ask for feedback, all the work is on the mentor to provide expertise. In reality, nobody likes giving or receiving feedback. Effective sessions include your reflection, actions, and closing the loop for accountability.
Recent Reviews
"Cat is an outstanding mentor who even took the time to touch base with me on any questions I had prior to our meeting. This really optimized our time together. Cat explained relevant processes on a high level and eased my mind regarding several items I was not sure about. Highly recommend." Alana Appel - UX Designer, Studied at Brainstation January 10, 2023
"Cat is a stellar mentor! I just graduated from a UX bootcamp, and wanted more feedback on my case study. I knew something was missing, but couldn't understand what. Cat was able to give me constructive feedback and actionable advice; all of which made so much sense, I couldn't believe no one else told me before. She's honest, thorough, and caring; everything one would hope for in a mentor" Tiffany, aspiring UX Designer, Mento Design Academy February 04, 2023
"Hey Cat! I hope you’re doing so well :) I just wanted to let you know: I got the offer from Amazon!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your help, truly."
Cat was an AMAZING mentor throughout my interview loops. She was extremely helpful and insightful about the end to end process, and what I appreciated most was how candid, open and honest she was with the tips and tricks she took me through. I asked for Cat's help specifically with the whiteboard challenge, and her patient and structured style was instrumental in helping me understand how to properly tackle a WBC prompt in the future. Moreover, Cat dedicated a huge amount of time above and beyond what we'd even scheduled together, showing that she really cared about how well I did in my interview. Lastly, I want to thank Cat for all her help - I ended up getting the job and am so super grateful! Mina - UX Design Amazon. Sept 21, 2021
"Cat is a truly amazing mentor who deeply cares about your growth and success. She gave me very thoughtful advice and shared her own experiences. She definitely went above and beyond with all the valuable insights and real-life examples. I feel so much more confident about developing my own career path. Plus, she shared more resources after our session. I’m so grateful to have her mentorship. Thanks a ton, Cat!!" May Park - UX Designer, iHeartMedia
"Cat goes above and beyond. She reached out to me weeks before our scheduled meeting and offered her mentorship ahead of time. She cares about her mentees and wants them to succeed! I strongly recommend booking a session with Cat."
Joelle. Sr Product Designer at Intuit - June 22, 21
"Over the past 10 months, you not only celebrated my wins, but you also turned every mistake into a learning opportunity. Your patience let me learn things the right way and words can't express my gratitude for everything that you've done. I couldn't ask for a better mentor! 🙏🏼" Tony Hartonias
"Cat is an amazing mentor - a great listener, clear, insightful and actionable advice, and most of all, even with all of her years in the industry and success, she is so down to earth and easy to speak with!"
Kristen Oshiro - Microsoft - June 21, 21
Resources
Check out my Notion of resources I compiled.
Adobe XD & Design Resources
All below content comes with live video and UI design assets distributed for free on my Behance page.
Adobe Live Speaker: UX / UI Design - VR Explore
2021 • Remote
We are faced with the new normal, a new reality during COVID19 pandemic. How do we keep connected while we social distance? Over the course of 4 hours stream, I talk about companies that are changing the landscape by introducing new ways of connecting through the use of video, VR, and AR.
4 Hours - iPad Designs iOS14
Total Views: 7K+ Day 1 (2.9k), Day 2 (4.9k)
Adobe Live Speaker: UX / UI Design - Outer Space
2019 • San Francisco, CA
Outer space app that provides a trip to the moon and back. Taking a close look at the space race between Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and other future tech leaders, how can we create an app to book a trip? The concept app showcases the amazing features of Auto Animate via XD
6 Hours - iPhone UI & Prototype
Total Views: 11K+ Day 1 (8.1k), Day 2 (2.7k), Day 3 (2.6k)
