Mentoring
Find out more about how a mentor could help you with your career planning and employability.
What is mentoring?
Mentors offer advice and information to support people. This can be with their career, personal or professional development.
You can benefit from a mentor’s experience and knowledge of a job role, employer or sector. The arrangement can be short or long term, depending on the type of support you need.
The National Careers Service has advice on how to get the most from mentoring.
Before contacting a mentor, consider:
- What you hope to gain from mentoring. This could be help with career planning, information about what their job involves, advice on building relevant skills.
- The amount of time you have available to commit and how often you'd like to meet.
How to find a mentor
If you work for a large employer, they may have a mentoring scheme that you can join. You may be able to find a mentor from a part time job, work experience, volunteering or your personal contacts.
You could find a mentor through a professional networking platform such as LinkedIn. You could research companies or organisations that you are interested in then reach out to make contact.
For more information on connecting to people through LinkedIn, visit Making Contacts.
Newcastle University mentoring programmes
Some academic schools run mentoring programmes for current students. Speak with your school office to find out more.
If you are a graduate, you could apply to join the 60 minute alumni-to-alumni mentoring scheme. Alumni mentors are available in a wide range of industries.
Online mentoring programmes
You can use an online mentoring programme. You will be matched with an industry professional. 1-hour sessions are available on the following platforms:
More help
If you would like more help with networking and finding a mentor, you could book an appointment with an Information Adviser.