MALCOLM DUCE: My name is Malcolm Duce and I am a Mentor with the QUT Career Mentors Scheme for Students. I've been involved for 9 years and the scheme has grown from strength to strength. There are now more than 500 students across QUT in the Career Mentor Scheme and it is now the largest in Australia.

The whole point about the Career Mentor Scheme is that the university here is for the real world and it helps the students relate what they study at QUT with what they will be required to do in their careers after they leave QUT. So the benefits for students are that we help them with their career goals and to establish contacts, networks in the real world before they even leave university. We need to help them with their assignments from time to time so they can relate with what they study at QUT with what happens in the real world. And as a result of all of that, the students that are involved in the Mentor Scheme very quickly learn to improve their self esteem and self confidence whilst at QUT and that's a huge benefit for when they leave university.

Mentors and mentees would usually meet each other face to face twice a month either on campus or off campus at a convenient location, and communicate through other means between meetings. We help them to develop their career goals and introduce them to future employers and to introduce them to members of professional bodies for networking opportunities.

Mentors are often asked what are the benefits for mentors being involved in the Scheme? Well the satisfaction for mentors really comes by seeing students develop their career goals more clearly while they're at QUT.

NEV SHAEFE: Hello I'm Nev Shaefe, I've been with the QUT mentor program now for a number of years. This year I've been lucky enough to have Hasitha as my mentee in the area of Information Technology.

Hasitha, originally didn't know much about what working in the IT industry was all about. My experience of many years working in the IT industry meant that I could help him in this regard. We worked on a plan to do several things one of which was to strengthen up his resume but later on we worked very strongly on his application for industry placement as part of his project which is where he would be able to gain a lot more experience working in the IT industry.

One of the outcomes of Hasitha being successful in his industry placement, was that he now becomes very attractive to people in the IT Industry because he now has experience in that area.

HASITHA SAMARATUNGA: Hi, my name is Hasitha. I'm from Sri Lanka. I found out about the Career Mentor program at the start of the year and I thought I should apply for it to find out about the broadness (sic) of the IT industry.

With Nev's guidance I was able to apply for the work placement which I was successful in and with that experience I am now more attractive to future employers.

I found this program quite beneficial as I gained a great mentor out of it and he provided me with guidance and advice towards career planning and now I'm more confident in applying for future employment.

I can highly recommend this program to anyone.