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What is Employability Mentoring?

 

What is Employability Mentoring?

Welcome to a scheme where students and graduates of DMU get to meet and talk with professionals from industry, who have joined the same scheme to share their experiences from the world of work with students and graduates of DMU. We have a huge range of mentors already part of the scheme and as they are our contacts, we want to open up those contacts for you to access.

This scheme is all about making connections with and learning from professionals who have begun their career path in the world of graduate level work and who have significant industry experience to share. Employability Mentoring provides our students and graduates with the opportunity to engage with and ask questions to professionals who are willing to share their wisdom and experience, in virtual, in person, in group and in one-to-one mentoring settings.

  1. What is the aim of the scheme?

    This scheme aims to improve the employability of our students using industry mentors.

    We will do this through the scheme by:

    • Helping you to identify and understand your current level of employability
    • Exploring and capturing a vision for your future professional self
    • Engaging you with a range of professionals to help you learn from them and their experience
    • Encouraging you to act on what you have seen and heard from the mentors to affect positive change in your life.

  2. What does the scheme look like and what would I be doing?

    This scheme has been designed specifically to provide a fantastic experience for students and graduates who want to engage in mentoring. As such, the entire process will comprise the following:

    • A stage-by-stage approach, which develops your understanding of mentoring to prepare you to engage in it effectively
    • A process that from the very start and at every stage builds on your employability using various activities and approaches
    • Support every step of the way in the process with the scheme leader to tackle any questions or concerns that you have
    • A mix of taught sessions, reflective exercises, self-assessments, mentoring activity and practical action setting
    • A clear pathway that allows you to go as far as you want to go in the process and as deep as you want to go into mentoring
    • A fully supportive culture that values and respects your studies, your health and life commitments and is tailored to suit

  3. What are the benefits of Employability Mentoring?

    There are any number of benefits to engaging in Employability Mentoring. These can include elements such as:

    • An opportunity to build and grow a mentoring relationship where you can transform yourself by developing awareness, insight and professionalism
    • An opportunity to delve deeper into a person’s career gaining detailed in-depth information that can be acted on to help navigate one’s own path in industry
    • A safe, non-judgement space to spend time with professionals who genuinely care about your development and listen to you, your concerns, questions and aspirations
    • Accessing our schemes mentors based on your requirements

    The scheme offers a wealth of mentoring activity including (but not limited to):

    • Traditional one-to-one mentoring relationships
    • Large group mentoring sessions with multiple mentors
    • Single mentor small group mentoring sessions
    • Multiple mentor allocations to individual students
    • Industry specific and general employability mentoring sessions
    • Virtual and face to face mentoring opportunities
    • Individual support for approaching mentors outside the scheme

 

Think of the Employability Mentoring scheme as a journey, which will help you as a student or graduate to learn about the world of work, to grow and to change in new and exciting ways with the support of professional mentors and the scheme staff.

This short film tells you more about what we do:

Our scheme newsletter

Our Employability Mentoring Newsletter contains updates on the scheme for students, alumni, academics, and professionals in industry. Our most recent edition can be found here:

Employability Mentoring Newsletter March 2022

Quality at the centre of all that we do

Our scheme has proudly been twice awarded the Approved Provider Standard kitemark by the NCVO for its delivery of high-quality mentoring and continues to strive for excellence in every aspect of the work we undertake with mentors and mentees.

Want to find out more?

The formal scheme is a dedicated process that begins term time at the start of the academic year. That process is now well underway with new recruits who joined the scheme shortly after then with whom we are working with this coming year. We will be open to meeting with potential new mentees for preparation in late spring 2023.

If in the meantime you would like to have an informal discussion about mentoring with the scheme lead, please do contact Andy Morris using the information listed below. Thank you.


Scheme manager:

Andy Morris 
Employability Mentoring Manager
E: andy.morris@dmu.ac.uk
General scheme email: mentoring@dmu.ac.uk

 NCVO approved provider