Frequently asked questions for Mentors

When you register as a mentor you will be provided with access to our online mentor training course which has lots of useful resources to support you through your mentorship. 

We ask our volunteers to commit to one hour per month, although this may not be in a one hour block each month. This can be flexible depending on availability and the objectives of the mentorship. When you meet your mentee for the first time you can discuss the frequency and duration of your meetings. 

Although many of our mentors are alumni, we welcome non-alumni and staff members as well. 

At any given time we recommend that mentors have a maximum of two mentees in order dedicate a sufficient amount of time to each mentee and to not impact heavily on the mentor's work load.

We encourage face to face meetings where possible however, depending on availabilty and location we recognise this may not always be possible. We welcome you to use virtual communication channels such as Teams, Zoom, Skype etc to keep in touch with your mentee.    

Although we will do our best to find a suitable mentee each time, this is not always possible as it depends on student demand. We are very grateful for your support and if you are not matched straight away, we will prioritise you in the matching process for our next intake of mentees. 

There are also other opportunities for you to be involved with that allow you to still share your career journey such as a creating a website profile, being a guest speaker or offering work experience. We will be happy to discuss other options with you too if you are interested. 

The mentoring relationships last for 6 months. You are welcome to keep in touch with your mentee after this point but it would be seperate from the University and outside of the official scheme. We encourage you to discuss with your mentee whether you will stay in touch with one another during your final meeting. 

We inform our mentees that mentors are not obliged to offer job opportunities as part of the mentorship. However, you may wish to consider offering opportunities such as work‑shadowing, observation, volunteering, as well as paid work. Where the student counts as a worker or employee, mentors must meet at least the National Minimum Wage, in line with UK employment law. The University recommends that students work no more than 15 hours per week during term time to support academic success. International students on a Student visa are generally permitted to work up to 20 hours per week during term time and full‑time during University vacation periods. Students must comply with their specific individual visa requirements. For further info, visit: UKCISA’s advice on Student Work and the University’s Working during your studies.

Alternatively, you may be able to support your mentee by connecting them with someone from your network or using your mentoring meetings to share advice around how they might source and apply for work experience opportunities.

For guidance on offering work experience, please contact: internships@contacts.bham.ac.uk 

Mentees can contact: workexperience@contacts.bham.ac.uk

You can find out more about our bespoke internship programmes via our Work Experience webpages.