Careers Network Mentoring Scheme
The Careers Network Mentoring Scheme connects students and recent graduates with industry professionals who volunteer their time to share their experience and knowledge.
Over six months, you’ll arrange monthly 1:1 meetings, coming prepared with an agenda of questions and topics to discuss that enable your mentor to support you in working towards your career goals and aspirations.
You’ll benefit from practising how to build a professional relationship in a supportive setting, and from gaining insight into a particular job role or sector.
Benefits of Mentoring
We run two cyles of the Careers Network Mentoring Scheme, one in Autumn term (mentorships from November to April) and one in Spring term (mentorships from March to August). You’ll meet your mentor either via video call each month, or in person, depending on their location and the format you both agree.
As a mentee, you'll benefit from:
- Practising building a professional relationship in a supportive, low-risk setting before applying these skills in the workplace. If you have little or no experience communicating with professionals outside your normal social circle, this scheme is ideal for you.
- Gaining real insight into a particular job role or sector and also sectors beyond academia from an experienced professional.
- Discovering your strengths, develop new skills and learn how to articulate these during recruitment processes.
- Learning how to develop your networks.
- Sounding out your ideas with an industry professional who will give you constructive and honest feedback to help you make informed decisions.
- Feeling encouraged and empowered about your personal development!
The next available opportunity to receive mentorship with our Careers Network Mentoring Scheme is our Autumn 2026 round, which is due to open to applications again on 31 August 2026. If you’re interested in being involved, you can complete our expression of interest form and we’ll be in touch when applications reopen.
You can hear more stories from previous mentees by exploring our mentoring stories library below. You can also see more detailed case studies in our bank of mentee case studies.
Take a look through our library of mentoring stories from the last few years:
Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content
“A learning relationship which helps people to take charge of their own development, to realise their potential and to achieve results which they value” – (Connor and Pokora 2007)
Through our Careers Network Mentoring Scheme you would be paired with an industry professional (a mentor) to engage in a series of conversations all focused around your career development.
The relationship is on a 1-2-1 basis and is led by you (the mentee) in terms of what areas you would like the mentoring discussions to focus on. Below are a few examples of what mentors and mentees on the scheme have previously discussed as part of their mentorship:
- Routes for entering into a particular job role or industry and the skills/qualifications needed
- Growing your network of industry contacts, in-person and virtually
- Top tips for preparing for recruitment processes (CVs, interviews, assessment centres)
- Preparing for transitioning into the workplace from university
- Planning what opportunities to engage with at University to help with achieving career goals
- Where to source and apply for work experience opportunities
Mentors will share their experiences and knowledge to motivate and empower you and help you to understand your aims and how you can achieve these.
We have hundreds of mentors who have kindly volunteered their time to support students and graduates.
They are from a wide range of sectors, job roles, backgrounds and many are UoB alumni. We have a number of mentors with postgraduate research qualifications, and a number who are experienced in hiring postgraduate researchers.
As well as having UK based mentors, we also have some who are based internationally in places such as the US, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and more.
Visit our Mentor Sectors and Job Roles page to find out more about our available mentors.
The Careers Network Mentoring Scheme is open to the following:
- Undergraduate students in any year and from any degree discipline
- Graduates of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic year
- Postgraduate taught students
- Postgraduate researchers
For any further questions, you can contact our mentoring team via mentoring@contacts.bham.ac.uk.
How to register for the Careers Network Mentoring Scheme
Our Autumn 2026 round is due to open to applications again in early September 2026. If you’re interested in being involved, you can complete our expression of interest form and we’ll be in touch when applications reopen.
When you register as a mentee, you’ll be asked to agree to the programme’s Terms and Conditions, which include an initial commitment to meet your assigned mentor at least once, either over Zoom or in person, to begin building the mentoring relationship. This initial meeting will give you the best insight into the support your mentor can offer and help highlight the experiences you both share.