Career Mentoring Assistant

Thrive is the University of Reading’s award-winning Career Mentoring scheme, designed to build the employability of our students and facilitate their transition into graduate level work through the great support of our alumni and partners. Embedded within the Careers department, we have a small team dedicated to running the scheme. Thrive has grown to the region of 400 partnerships and the scheme needs a Career Mentoring Assistant who will take the lead on the student facing elements of the Career Mentoring scheme in pursuit of its annual targets for the number of mentoring partnerships and ‘widening participation’ participants.

This role will be primarily responsible for student mentee promotion, recruitment, training and engagement; the organisation of mentoring events and efficient team administration as well as offering support to the Career Mentoring Manager. If you get a deep satisfaction from helping students from all backgrounds reach their career aspirations, work well under pressure, are a strong communicator and are highly organised then we would really like to hear from you.

You will need to:

• Be able to design and deliver effective mentee training workshops using relevant knowledge and experience.
• You will need to demonstrate an understanding of mentoring, its benefits and challenges and the processes involved.
• Have excellent organisational skills from having planned and delivered a series of activities and events, including the ability to keep calm and prioritise under pressure.
• You will need strong communication skills when: presenting the scheme to students (e.g. lecture call-outs), dealing diplomatically with mentee or mentor concerns, building rapport with students to recruit them onto the scheme and generally providing good customer service.
• Administrative and IT skills are also needed to support the team as use of Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel), a bespoke mentoring database and various social media, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, are required.
• We need someone compelling, who uses their initiative, can work both independently and as part of a close team and who is passionate about social mobility.

You can find further information about the Thrive Career Mentoring scheme at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/essentials/Careers/Advice-and-development/Mentoring/THRIVE and at https://www.reading.ac.uk/essentials/Careers/Employers/Thrive-Mentoring

Interview date: 16/02/2023

Informal contact details

Contact role: Career Mentoring Manager
Contact name: Holly Forsyth
Contact phone: 0118 378 6040
Contact email: h.forsyth@reading.ac.uk

Alternative informal contact details

Contact role: Career Consultant
Contact name: Vicki Wiles
Contact phone: 0118 378 8025
Contact email: v.l.wiles@reading.ac.uk

Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. However, non-UK candidates who do not already have permission to work in the UK should note that by reference to the applicable SOC code for this role, sponsorship will not be possible under the Skilled Worker Route. There is further information about this on the UK Visas and Immigration Website.

The University is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce, supports the gender equality Athena SWAN Charter and the Race Equality Charter, and is a Diversity Champion for Stonewall, the leading LGBT+ rights organisation. Applications for job-share, part-time and flexible working arrangements are welcomed and will be considered in line with business needs.

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