School of Business, Management and Economics launches student-business mentoring scheme
Posted on behalf of: School of Business, Management and Economics
Last updated: Friday, 23 September 2016
The Sussex School of Business, Management and Economics has launched a scheme to train experienced managers from local businesses as mentors and match them with students, who will benefit from their mentors' business expertise.
Participating students will benefit from the scheme by gaining real world experience and sharing ideas learned through study with experienced professionals on a one to one basis.
For business leaders, the scheme offers a chance to develop new skills, share expertise and support students in learning about the world of work to inspire their future career paths.
The scheme was launched with a mentor training day in September 2016 on the Sussex campus, provided free of charge for managers and CEOs from local companies including:
The comprehensive and interactive training day - run in partnership with QED Coaching - provided an opportunity to learn and practice key mentoring skills while networking with other local business leaders.
Following this session, mentors are now being matched with their student mentees. A follow up event will be held in January 2017 to allow mentors to reflect on learning from their mentoring sessions and provide ongoing peer support.
Managers were enthusiastic about the training day and supporting students across the School, commenting that their exchanges will also add to their own development:
'I can’t wait to put into practice what I have learned'
Maria Duque Ordiz, Strategic Project Manager at Cloud 9
'The day was a great success'
Helen Bence, Sales and Marketing at RJ Power Group
'The training was very informative – as much about learning for us as learning for the mentee'
Derek Elphick, Head of IT at Palmer & Harvey McLane Ltd
Kate Thorpe, Business Liaison Manager for the School of Business, Management and Economics, commented:
'It's been great to see such enthusiasm from business leaders to support students with gaining employability skills, and this is certainly matched by students keen to learn from their expertise.
'As well as achieveing our overarching aims, the scheme provides a great networking opportunity for managers across a range of organisations.
'This is one of a number of new initiatives planned by the School of Business, Management and Economics to seek out collaborative working opportunities that are mutually beneficial for business and students alike.'
Join our mentoring scheme now
Students
You can sign up to receive mentoring from business experts at any time by completing our student-business mentoring scheme request form.
Mentors
We are now recruiting for our next cohort of mentors. If you’d like to get involved with this exciting and rewarding scheme, please complete our business enquiry form or contact us at bmecbusiness@sussex.ac.uk