Graduate mentoring – How to get workplace ready

This was backed up by another Pearson Business school study of 1,012 graduates which found:

• 34% felt unprepared when it came to leadership skills
• 25% felt unprepared when it came to negotiation skills, and
• 23% felt they lacked relevant technical skills.

The survey also concluded that many felt unprepared for the graduate recruitment process, having had little opportunity to either speak to a career advisor or to take part in mock interviews.

Clearly, the impact of the events of 2020 will have done nothing to help the situation with many new graduates finding it extremely difficult to find employment and those who do are now entering a very different world of work, often having to get to grips with a new organisation and new role at a distance while working remotely.

Even for those who are in roles where they are able to go to their workplace, the transition from university to the workplace is now a very different story, with support networks and induction processes that were previously in place now being more difficult to access.

Thanks to the Connect mentoring platform, help is at hand for graduates looking for support to ensure they are “workplace-ready”. Connect enables graduates to search for mentors who can help them develop the soft skills that employers feel are lacking, jump ahead of the competition when it comes to securing a graduate role and improve promotion prospects once hired.

For graduates looking for their first career break, mentors are able to provide a wealth of insight into career options, career search advice and interview preparation. 

Connect provides all of the necessary tools to enable graduates and mentors to identify the key challenges and goals to work on and provides step by step support, in the form of video guides, throughout the relationship to ensure it remains on track.

One of the positives of the pandemic is that meeting virtually has now become the norm. This means that for today’s graduates it is now possible to connect with a mentor and meet through a choice of options including Teams, Zoom WhatsApp and more, ensuring that support from a mentor is readily accessible, having all the benefits of a face-to-face mentoring session but from the comfort of home.

With the light at the end of the tunnel now hopefully in sight, the future for graduates should start to look a lot brighter, and for those who are able to take advantage of mentoring, they can be well prepared to make the most of those future opportunities.