Overview

Alumni as Mentors is open to Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington alumni, across the world, who have gone on to have careers in a variety of fields and who wish to share their advice, experiences, and career journeys with current students. Alumni as Mentors provides alumni the opportunity to assist final-year student mentees with their professional development as they transition from university to the workplace. 

Eligibility

Applications are welcome from alumni from all disciplines.      
    
Mentors must     
  • have graduated from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington with an undergraduate or postgraduate degree
  • be able to commit approximately 10-12 hours to each mentoring partnership. This estimate includes mentoring activities (e.g. mentoring meetings, networking events) and communicating with the Alumni as Mentors team. 
  • engage with training material before their first mentoring connection if they have not mentored on the programme before.

Connection process

Apply to the programme 23 June - 7 July
Your application becomes your mentor profile, which is visible to students accepted onto the programme.     
     
Wait for matching outcome 7 July – 23 July 
  • Students can request their own mentors between 7 - 16 July. 
  • If you haven't received (and accepted) a mentoring request from a student by 16 July, the Alumni as Mentors team will try to make a match for you by 23 July. The team will match pairs based on overlap in academic background, career aspirations, mentoring preferences, and other information provided in the applications. While we cannot guarantee a mentoring match for everyone who applies to join the programme, we do our best to set up as many quality mentoring partnerships as we can. If we cannot find you a student match, your profile will carry over to the next round of applications (unless requested otherwise). 
If you are matched with a student mentee by 23 July, attend the Launch event 29 July, 7pm*. 
*New mentors are invited to attend in-person mentor training as part of the launch event (29 July 6pm-7pm) or watch recording of online session on mentoring platform.    
 

Partnerships with flexibility

Every mentoring partnership is determined by the unique needs and goals of the student mentee and the experiences and insights you can bring to the partnership. The 'goals and tasks' function in your Connection Plan on the mentoring platform allows you and your mentee to structure your priorities, while you can also draw on goal and activity ideas suggested in the mentoring resources. 

You specify your availability     
You decide how many mentees you can support at one time (by default this is set to 1). Consider your other commitments before making yourself available to multiple students.  

 For more information on what to expect as a mentor, please see the mentor guide. 
 

 

Express interest in mentoring a student

Mentor applications for Trimester 2 open in July. Express interest below to be notified when applications open.

 

Express interest

"Being a mentor is a great chance to hone some of the skills that are so important if you want to get better at managing teams: coaching, active listening, leading etc. It's also a good opportunity to work with future leaders and build your Wellington network." - previous AAM mentor

Careers and Employment support 

The Wellington Careers and Employment team are here to support you and the mentees to make the most of the partnerships. In addition to specific support for your mentoring partnership, your student mentee is encouraged to participate in workshops, employer presentations, expos, and leadership programmes organised by our team, to complement the topics discussed in your partnership. 

Each application is checked against our alumni and student records, to ensure the platform provides a dedicated space for alumni mentors and student mentees.    

YOUR PROFILE INFORMATION

As a mentor, certain information in your profile (e.g. name, location, background, and motivations) will be visible to mentees to help them determine whether you are the right mentor for their needs. Your contact details will only be shared with mentees once you are in a mentoring partnership.      
     
All the information you provide (including your date of birth and platform activities) will be visible to administrators.

further information

If you meet the criteria to participate in the programme you can contact alumniasmentors@vuw.ac.nz for more information.