LUT Mentoring Programme

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Alumni, do you want to help students in matters related to working life and career? Could now be a good time to get involved in mentoring?

Master's or doctoral student, are you interested in developing your career readiness and work-life skills during your studies? Would you like to network with LUT alumni?

This cooperation is possible in the LUT Mentoring Programme.

What is mentoring?

In the LUT Mentoring Programme alumni, who have graduated from the university, mentor the students i.e. mentees. For alumni, mentoring offers fresh viewpoints from the students’ world and an opportunity to reflect one’s own professional know-how.

Alumni and students work in pairs making a process that emphasizes the students’ career readiness and helps defining their professional skill sets and strengths. Mentoring is mutual interaction that requires activity, commitment, openness and trust from each party.

Academic year 2025–2026

The Mentoring Programme will start again in December. Application period for mentors is open until 11 September. Application period for mentees open on 6 October. Check the programme schedule, ground rules, and other practicalities below and apply to join.

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You can apply as a mentor if you are a LUT alumni and you have work experience of five years at the very least.

What we expect from a mentor:

Commitment to meet with the mentee online approximately once a month.
Setting goals and agreeing on the practicalities together with the mentee.
Supporting the student’s career readiness and finding his/her full potential in the labor market.
Understanding that the mentee’s individual needs and desires form the basis of the mentoring process.

What we do not expect from a mentor:

Offering a job, internship or a thesis position to the mentee.
Sharing all the contacts in one’s network.
Being able to answer all the questions the mentee has.

Mentor application period is open until 11 September. All applicants will be contacted either via email or phone in the end of September the latest.

Apply to become a mentor

Who can apply?

LUT master’s students
LUT doctoral students
newly graduated LUT alumni (max one year after graduation) if they are still looking for work from their own field

What we expect from the mentees

commitment to meet with the mentor approximately once a month from December to May
commitment to participate the mentee orientation session and three group meetings during the programme
taking an active role when agreeing on the meetings, topics and practicalities with the mentor
setting objectives for the programme
understanding that the mentor is not expected to offer a job, an internship or a thesis position to you

On the application form you define three mentors you would like to work with (options 1-3). You can apply to any mentor regardless of what you have studied.

Mentors and mentees will be matched up based on their compatibility. In the formation of pairs, the mentees' application order is also taken into account if necessary.

The next mentee application period will begin on 6 October. The link to the application form will be updated on this page.

Schedule for the academic year 2025–2026:

Tuesday 9.12.2025

Mandatory online orientation session for mentees at 16.30–17.30
Voluntary online orientation session for mentors at 18.00–19.00

Tuesday 13.1.2026 at 17.00-18.30

an online kick-off event for all the mentors and mentees

January – May 2026

the mentoring pairs meet one another online (or face to face, if they choose to do so) approximately once a month

Tuesday 10.3.2026 at 17.00-18.30

an online mid-way meeting for all the mentors and mentees

Tuesday 12.5.2026 at 17.00-18.30

an online closing ceremony for all the mentors and mentees

Thursday 21.5.2026

a closing dinner in Helsinki
the event will take place in the evening – time and place will be announced later

The programme will be carried out online, but the pairs can meet each other also face to face, if they happen to be in the same area.

The programme consists of separate orientations for mentees and mentors as well as three group meetings that all the mentors and mentees participate. In addition, there will be at least five meetings together with one’s own pair. The joint meetings will be carried out in English.

It’s smart to agree on the dates and times for the pair meetings early on.

Mentoring is based on voluntariness, so no mentor fees are paid. To participate the programme, one needs to commit to the whole mentoring process, including group and pair meetings.

In the beginning of the process the mentor and the mentee get to know each other, create the ground rules, and make a plan for the whole process. Pairs agree on at least the following:

Objectives for the mentoring process
The themes and questions they are going to work on. Also, what will not be covered.
Confidentiality: What can and cannot be discussed with others.
The dates and times for their meetings and practices for rescheduling or cancelling meetings. The recommended number of pair meetings is 5 times. The recommended duration for one meeting is roughly 1 hour 30 minutes.
Communication during mentoring, including channels and means
The roles and responsibilities of each party, how to prepare for meetings

Please remember that commitment and reliability are very important work life skills in Finland, so therefore, no-show is never an option.

It is smart to prepare the topics for each pair meeting beforehand in order to benefit from the meetings as much as possible. The topics can be, for example:

The student’s professional strengths and competences
Jobs and employers
Working life skills and practices
Experiences from the labor market
Career and career development
Forming networks

There’s a handbook for mentoring available. The handbook includes, for example, themes and exercises that can be utilized during the programme.

Mentorointiohjelman osallistujia päätösillallisella

The mentor application period is now underway

Alumni, you can apply to be a mentor if you have at least five years of work experience and are ready to commit to the programme’s schedule. Check the programme schedule, ground rules, and other practicalities, and apply to join.

Apply to become a mentor