Career Mentoring

We are delighted to announce that the Careers Service are relaunching our Career Mentoring programme for the 2023-24 academic year.

The mentoring programme will be open to all 1st and 2nd year undergraduate students at the University of Manchester and will match them with an industry professional to support them with career planning, decision making, and preparing for their next steps after university.

The programme will run from February to June 2024, and will be conducted through the Mentorloop mentoring platform, where you will be matched with your mentor and can message and schedule meetings with them. Mentees will be required to attend or watch a one-hour training session during the week commencing 29th January 2024 before they are invited to register on the platform and be matched with a mentor.

We expect the time commitment to be roughly a minimum of six hours across the programme; four meetings lasting 60 to 90 minutes each. However, this may be more or less depending on your mentor’s availability and how often you wish to meet with your mentor.

If you are interested in applying to get a mentor, you can do so through our online form below. Applications will close at midday on Monday 22nd January 2024.

If you have any issues or any further questions, please contact mentoring@manchester.ac.uk.

If you are an alumnus or an industry professional who is interested in being a Career Mentor for our students, please visit our employer website for more information.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I gain through having a mentor?

Your mentor’s role is to guide you towards making informed career decisions, to help you navigate how to find and apply for opportunities, and to give you some tips to help you succeed once you start. They will share their own personal career journey, provide insights into their current role/previous roles, and highlight the decisions they have made and the steps they have taken to get to where they are.

The discussions you have with your mentor aim to help you:

  • Explore your career options.
  • Overcome any barriers in your career planning.
  • Start to build your professional network through direct contact with your mentor.
  • Develop the skills and confidence you need to succeed in your career planning.
  • Improve your employability, CV, and performance at interviews.
  • Gain a competitive edge over other candidates.

How will I be matched with a mentor?

When you are invited to register for Mentorloop we will ask a number of questions about what you are looking for in a mentor, including what occupation area you are interested in and what skills you are looking to develop. Based upon this information, we will then try and match you with an appropriate mentor who is a good fit for what you are looking for. Please bear in mind that we may not be able to ensure a perfect match between mentor and mentee, however we aim to match mentees with mentors who share some commonalities, and who we feel will be able to support our students effectively. Even if the mentor is not in your ideal role or sector, they may still be able to support you and share career insights that will aid in your career planning.

How will the mentoring relationship work?

The mentoring relationship will be facilitated through the mentoring platform Mentorloop. Your mentor may not be in the same city, or even the same country as you, and so there is the option to conduct the mentoring relationship entirely online. However, if you both live in the same city and wish to meet in person, this is something you can decide with your mentor.

We recommend that you aim to meet a minimum of four times with your mentor across the mentoring relationship, although if you wish to meet more times and your mentor is able, we encourage to do so. In the meetings, you will discuss your career aspirations with your mentor and set goals for you to work on in between meetings. If you are unsure of what goals you specifically wish to work on at this stage, don’t worry! Further guidance will be provided if you are accepted on to the programme, and your mentor should be able to help you to identify and break down your goals with you.

What support will be available to me?

The mentoring team will be monitoring progress and feedback to ensure that your mentoring relationship is going smoothly. If we identify that your relationship may be stalling, we will reach out to you and your mentor to check in with you and see if there is any further support we can offer.

We also plan on conducting drop-in sessions, which you can attend online or in-person and flag up any issues you may be having in your mentoring relationship. Further details will be confirmed in due course.

You can also contact us at mentoring@manchester.ac.uk if you have any further questions.