headspace career mentoring

Matching young people, aged 18-25, with experienced working professionals online to help kick start careers.

What is headspace Career Mentoring? 

headspace Career Mentoring is an online program that matches you with a working professional, volunteering to share their career journey and industry insights. You'll meet regularly for up to 6 months via video calls and together you can explore available opportunities and pathways, build your professional network, discuss what work is like day-to-day and achieve your career goals. 

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Find a Career Mentor to suit your needs.

Our volunteer mentors work across a wide range of industries and come to us with extensive work experience and a variety of career journeys. 

We'll suggest mentors that best fit your interests and goals. Even if the mentor is not from the exact industry that you're interested in, you'll still benefit from having a dedicated mentor. You make the final decision on who you will be matched with. 

What are the benefits of connecting with a career mentor? 

Connecting with a career mentor can be a game-changer. You'll learn from someone who’s already been there and done it, they'll share their real-life experiences and professional insights to support you to achieve your career goals.

There are heaps of benefits of working with a career mentor, including: 

  • Career development - You have someone to turn to for practical advice and guidance, including how to ace your job applications, interviews and stand out from the crowd. 
  • Achieve your career goals - Someone is there to hold you accountable to reach your goals and celebrate every milestone along the way.
  • Feedback - You gain an outsider’s perspective and insight, helping you to improve your workplace skills. 
  • Opportunities to advance your career - Gain a clearer future career pathway, including support with changing industries or moving between roles.
  • Expand your network - Understand how to build a professional network and develop confidence in building important relationships for your future career. 
  • Insight - Tap into their knowledge from first-hand experiences, and gain further understanding into industries, workplaces and recruitment processes. 
  • Overcoming obstacles - Understand how your mentor overcame setbacks in their career and develop your communication skills for challenging workplace conversations, including salary negotiations and work/life balance.

 

Looking for more information- check out our frequently asked questions. 

Who is eligible? 

It doesn't matter where you live in Australia. If you're aged between 18-25, have career goals and are keen to connect with a career mentor to kick start your career, we're here for you. Book an appointment with our career mentoring team to chat about your career journey so far and what you're looking to achieve, and they'll help match you to a suitable mentor. 

“To me, my mentor became someone that I could share my successes and struggles with. She was also someone that I could go to for advice on the more abstract side of things in the industry, like how to relate to other people.”
- Roxanne, mentee

Ready to sign up for Career Mentoring?

Create a headspace account, find a time that suits you with our Career Mentoring team and confirm your booking. It's that easy!

Not ready to book and want more information about headspace Career Mentoring? 


Call 1800 810 794 to talk to a Work and Study Support Officer or register your interest for a call back to find out more and discuss your options. 

Join headspace Career Mentoring

Work and study group chats and online resources

Peer group chat
Join our fortnightly peer group chat, every second Thursday. 6.30-9.45pm AEDT. Hosted by trained peer moderators, we'll chat about anything work and study related, like resumes, interviews and study habits.
Learn More
Professional led group chat
We offer monthly chats hosted by Work and Study Specialists and guests to talk about a specific topic related work and study or general life skills. Submit questions in advance or ask during that chat.
Learn more and register for the next chat
Online resources
We have a range of articles and interactive activities to help you write your resume, prepare for job interviews, starting a new job or exams, manage work or study related stress and anxiety, and more.
Check out our library of articles.

See all available Work and Study programs

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Our mentors are working professionals across a range of fields and industries. They come to us with a variety of career journeys and life experiences, which they want to share with their mentee. They can range from Executives, project managers, business owners and entrepreneurs.
Our mentors have different personal and cultural backgrounds. Where possible, we can help you to connect to a mentor who may have had similar life experiences. 
headspace mentors receive extensive onboarding and training before they connect with a mentee and are based across Australia.  

Generally, you will connect every fortnight at a time that works for you and your mentor. All of this happens online, via video call. If you’d like your sessions to be more or less frequent, you can organise this directly with your mentor. 
 
You connect with your mentor for up to 6 months. The length of your relationship is dependent on your career goals and how long you’d like to engage in the program. 

You can find a mentor by signing up to the headspace career mentoring program, our team will get to know you so they can match you with a career mentor to suit your interests and goals. 

headspace career mentors are volunteers who focus on supporting your career goals. They are not trained in counselling or mental health.   
 
If you would like some support with your mental health, you can connect with mental health clinicians through eheadspace or find a headspace centre near you. 
 
You can also receive mental health support and work and study support through the Work and Study Online service. This service has a team of clinicians who can work with you and your Work and Study Specialist on any mental health challenges related to your work and study goals. 

There's no set structure to a session and no two sessions will be the same, it all depends on your goals. To help we have developed a range of resources, tools and guides for your mentor to help structure your conversations. 

The timing is dependent on lots of different things such as mentor availability, what your career goals are and what you’d like support with. We aim to propose a potential match to you within 1-2 weeks of you registering your interest in the service. However, it may take some time for us to find the right match for you, as we always strive to get this right. We’ll be in touch with you throughout this process to ensure you’re kept up to date on the timeframes. 

We’ll be in contact with both you and your mentor when you are ready to start wrapping up so you can plan your remaining sessions together. Once you and your mentor have had your final session together, we will reach out to you to have a chat about your mentoring experience and formally close off your participation with the service. 
 
You are still able to communicate after your final mentoring session. However, the mentoring relationship will no longer be sponsored by headspace. How you will communicate moving forward will be up to you both, and we encourage you to discuss this with each other to ensure you both feel comfortable and agree on next steps.

We don’t expect our mentors to find you a job in their organisation or your desired field or introduce you to their own networks. 
 
However, they can definitely support you to develop your networking skills and can share new insights about securing work or breaking into your desired field. 

A mentoring relationship is a two-way street, so it is important that you contribute actively! 
 
You are expected to behave in a professional manner to build a strong and productive working relationship with your mentor. We ask that you: 

  • Reflect on what you want to achieve, what kind of support you’re looking for and prepare for your sessions 
  • Openly communicate and be responsible for scheduling your mentoring sessions with your mentor 
  • Show respect to your mentor and maintain appropriate boundaries 
  • Raise any concerns with the headspace Career Mentoring team 

 

Your wellbeing is important to us, and we encourage you to engage in self-care and seek professional mental health support when needed. 

It is totally fine if you and your mentor don’t vibe! If this happens, it is not a reflection of you both as a mentor and mentee.  
We work hard to find a suitable mentor who is aligned with your goals, but sometimes a mentoring relationship may not work out for all sorts of reasons.
 
You can always reach out to the headspace Career Mentoring team for support if you feel like it's not working out with your mentor.

Of course – life happens! Reach out to the headspace Career Mentoring team to discuss next steps. 

The Career Mentoring team appreciates and welcomes your feedback. You can use the general headspace service feedback form, make sure to indicate that your feedback is in regards to the Career Mentoring program.

If you’re in an organisation or individual seeking an opportunity to support headspace and young people with their careers, learn more about what's involved in becoming a Career Mentor and Program Partner and register your interest.

You will need a laptop, PC or tablet and internet connection for your online video sessions. It’s best to connect to WiFi if you can. We use a system called Mentorloop to connect you with a mentor and your video calls take place via Zoom, which is integrated within the Mentorloop system. You’ll need to use your laptop, PC or tablet for your zoom mentoring sessions.  

 

 

Career Mentoring is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services