Professional Mentoring

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Implemented by

Aston University

Careers+ Placements

Target Groups

Year 2 Students.

What is it?

The professional mentoring programme matches business professionals with second year students to work one-to-one, helping them gain an insight into professional life. The actual length of the relationships were flexible and dependent on mentee needs, but on average they lasted around 6 months. During this time, mentors helped students develop their professional skills, which ensured that students began their journeys into the professional world with a solid foundation of knowledge.

Upon joining the programme, students were offered preparation support through employability events and an online training session which aimed to develop student understanding of the programme. The training included basic information such as the definition of mentoring, the responsibilities of mentees and mentors, what they could expect from the scheme and what they were expected to do. This was followed by an online quiz, along with other supporting resources made available by Aston.

Mentors were invited to a training session and were provided with supporting resources. They were encouraged to keep in touch with the mentoring co-ordinator for ongoing support and troubleshooting.

Mentors and mentees were matched by the Mentoring Co-ordinator based on their respective support offering and needs.

Students initially attended a meet and greet session with their mentors. These sessions were very informal, and refreshments were provided for both students and mentors. Following the meet and greet session, students attended one-to-one sessions with their mentors for a minimum of once per month. During these sessions, mentors aimed to enhance student employability through techniques including personal development coaching and providing opportunities for workplace visits. In addition, mentors worked with students to support access to industry skills training and expand their professional networks.

A celebration ceremony was held following completion of the programme to allow students the opportunity to discuss their experience with peers and employers.

Rationale

Professional mentoring interventions help prepare graduates for work-based learning opportunities and graduate employability.

Student Contact Time

Online training session: 10 minutes

Meet and Greet session with mentor: 2-3 hours

Meetings with mentor: Minimum 1 hour per month

Celebration Ceremony: 2-3 hours

Key Process Considerations

Developing strong links with a range of employers, with ready and willing mentors.
Maintaining contact with both Mentees and Mentors to encourage them to maintain contact.
Promoting benefits of accessing a mentor clearly to students.
Promoting benefits of being a mentor clearly to employers.
Academic buy-in is essential to project success.
Holding events such as meet and greets, socials, and awards evenings provides participants with opportunities sustain mentoring relationships.
Providing effective training to both mentors and mentees.
Providing support and guidance to mentors and mentees throughout.

Employer Input

Mentors were sourced via an alumni network campaign and also through an existing business development network.
Employer mentors are required to attend a meet and greet session with students, participate in one-to-ones with their mentees and attend a celebration ceremony following completion of the programme.

Student/ Alumni Input

Alumni networks can be used to recruit mentors.
Students should prepare for each phase of the project to ensure their ability to communicate effectively with mentors throughout.
Students should actively engage with the project, making sure they attend all training and meetings. This is particularly important during initial meetings/ interactions, as these can define the subsequent relationship with the mentor.
Students should attend the post project celebration ceremony to discuss their experience with peers and mentors.

Academic Input

Academics should support and promote the scheme to the student cohort.
Academics should utilise contacts with employers/organisations to help provide mentors.

Key Resource Considerations

The primary resource is university staff time. This time will typically be used to source mentors, promote the scheme to students, match mentees to mentors and maintain relationships with employers. As student engagement is one of the main challenges, much of this resource is allocated to reaching out and communicating to students.
Institutional/academic buy-in is critical to project success.

What is the evidence base?

Confidence and resilience surveys revealed that more students were likely to apply for a placement as a result of participating in the scheme.
Uptake data highlighted lower than average engagement across all three target groups, which included groups that might benefit most from the development of social and cultural capital.

Key Challenges

Lower than average engagement across target groups can be addressed through scaling and targeting the programme. This will encourage targeted students to make the most of the increased professional placement support and should ultimately lead to higher rates of placement uptake.
Sustaining the mentor/mentee relationship after initial meeting(s) can prove problematic. Ensuring good matching to provide a strong basis for the mentoring relationship is a crucial factor in overcoming this challenge, along with managing employer expectations to avoid mentor frustration with student engagement.
It is important to have a large and varied bank of mentors to ensure matching challenges are overcome.
Student engagement can be impacted by negative student perceptions on the value of professional mentoring.