Mentoring program – development ideas based on participants’ feedback : HERA and EntryPoint mentoring programs

The purpose of this thesis was to gather feedback from the HERA 2012 and EntryPoint 2014 mentoring programs’ participating mentors to gain development ideas for future mentoring programs. This data had never been researched before and therefore, important for the commissioner and the program. The aim was to research how the mentors benefited from the program and how they would develop it. The knowledge base shares background to the need for the mentoring programs by discussing the employment of international students of Finnish HEIs’. To clarify the connections of cooperating parties and programs, the commissioner as well as the previous mentoring programs are introduced. How mentoring is used in business settings and how mentoring is viewed in this thesis finalizes the knowledge base. Two surveys were conducted to gather feedback from the mentors, a primary survey and an in-depth interview. The quantitative primary survey helped in forming a general idea what type of mentors had participated in the programs, how they experienced the programs and whether they benefited from participation. The purpose of the in-depth interview was to go deeper into the subject, and let the mentors explain their experiences with their own words. Main results stated that more than 80 % of the respondents considered the participation beneficial. The mentors learned new skills, made connections with new people and gained understanding for different viewpoints and cultures. The main issue for development is to find a way to make the program comply more to the needs of the participants