Career Mentoring is an excellent way for you and your mentee to both learn and develop key mentoring skills. Mentoring is a very valuable skill in the workplace and increasingly valued by employers.

As a mentor you can:

• Develop key transferable and employability skills to support your own professional skills base
• Increase exposure for your organisation
• Gain access to networks and contacts within the University
• Unlock and discover fresh talent
• Have the opportunity to give something back, particularly for University of Southampton alumni

A number of organisations have successfully recruited previous mentees on our programme to internships and graduate level job opportunities that they have. It is important to emphasise however, that it is not a requirement of the Career Mentoring Programme that you have such opportunities to offer your mentees.

Benefits to Organisations:

We are happy for organisations to encourage several staff to take part as mentors. Some organisations utilise our programme to help raise their profile on campus whilst benefiting from personal professional development.

It can also be a great opportunity to show students the various roles and departments within your organisation.

Our programme opens for applications from students from September to October. This is to allow the maximum time for our mentoring relationships to become established and take place over the academic year.

Mentor training takes place between August and September with mentees being trained between October and November. As soon as our individual mentors and mentees have received training we can start matching you together. If you have already attended a training session you do not need to attend another, however, you are welcome to attend if you would find a refresher helpful.

Once you are matched you can arrange to start working with your mentee. This typically lasts one academic year, however some mentors and mentees choose to continue for a second year. The number of times you meet is determined between you and your mentee once you start, however we would recommend you have contact at least four times throughout the academic year, of which a minimum of two contacts should be either face-to-face or video calls.

To find out more about what is involved in participating in the Career Mentoring Programme, including frequently asked questions, read our Mentor Handbook .

You may also find it helpful to keep track of your mentoring meetings and actions by downloading our Mentoring Progress Log Sheet .

The University calendar is slightly different to the calendar year. You may find it helpful to familiarise yourself with key dates such as semesters, exams and vacations.

Our dedicated Career Mentoring Team will support you through the training, matching process and the mentoring relationship.

We recruit mentors from July until mid-September. Please note that applications for mentors for the 2024/25 academic year have now closed. 

Within the Career Mentoring Programme, we also offer two additional pathways:

Enterprise Mentoring

Do you have entrepreneurial skills? Could you offer support to a student who would like to set up their own business? If so, you can sign up to be an Enterprise Mentor to provide specialist advice to students who are interested in self-employment and enterprise.

Diversity Mentoring

Do you have personal experience that could support students from one or more of the following groups?

• Ethnic Minority Groups
• Care Leaver
• Disability
• First person in family to go to university
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans (LGBTQIA+)
• Women

If so, you can sign up to be a Diversity Mentor alongside the wider mentoring offer.