Career counselling and mentoring for students

The university's career counsellors have compiled a self-study material for students called Tools for planning your career and future. The material provides students with information, exercises and other tools to support their independent career planning at the time when they need it most. Have a look and recommend it to your students!

Career counselling for students
You can direct the student to career counselling to help them find answers to, for example, questions related to their future career, such as their work-related goals,  questions related to different career choices or questions related to their own competence and strengths. The goal of career counselling is to provide the student with tools to finding answers and discussing things together to help the student clear their thoughts. The student must book a time for career counselling. Note! Career counselling is also available on campus without an appointment. More information: Career counsellors on campus.

Drop-in support for job search
If a student needs help in finding a job or a traineeship, Career Services offer drop-in support for job search. No booking is needed.

Career and recruitment events
Career Services also organises different events, workshops and info sessions for students. The events are always targeted at a wider audience than a single faculty or degree programme, and they present career opportunities such as careers at the UN or the OECD. The events may also include workshops and webinars for those who wish to improve their job hunting or career planning skills.

For more information, please see the pages Work and career and Career Services' guidance and counselling. You can reach the career services via HelsinkiUni Help.  

Mentoring is an excellent way to improve the students’ self-awareness, professional networks and knowledge of working life. Mentoring is a method based on interaction between a mentor and a mentee. The questions, interests and objectives of the mentee determine the contents of the mentoring. Discussions between the mentee and their mentor are based on confidentiality, ambition, commitment and openness.

Mentoring can be very useful for considering future career choices and clarifying one’s identity as an expert. Mentoring can cover topics such as identifying and describing one’s strengths, competencies and development needs, discovering different career alternatives, career planning and job hunting skills. In addition to the time around graduation, mentoring can also be useful in earlier stages. The Workbook for mentoring (pdf) is commonly utilised to support mentoring processes at the University of Helsinki.

Group mentoring programme at the University of Helsinki

In the group mentoring programme, alumni of the University of Helsinki act as mentors to a small group of students (2–4 students). The programme is open to all students at the University of Helsinki.  The purpose of the group is to allow students to benefit from the mentor’s competence, knowledge and experience, but also from the wider perspective and support provided by the group of peers.

Students can apply for group mentoring in the autumn. The programme launch event is organised in January, and the groups meet approximately once per month until the end of April. The programme closing event is organised in May.

Degree programmes may grant students credits (1 credit) for participating in group mentoring based on a certificate from Career Services. Students will receive the certificates when they have actively participated in the programme’s meetings and submitted separately specified tasks to Career Services at the end of the programme. The degree programme decides whether or not it will grant the credits based on the certificate (for more information, please contact careerservices@helsinki).

The programme was started in 2012. The University of Helsinki Career Services coordinates the programme together with Helsinki Alumni. More information on group mentoring and schedules is available on the programme’s website. 

Other mentoring opportunities

• Suomen Mentorit mentoring programme: Mentoring also available in English! For more information, visit the Suomen Mentorit ry website (in English) and Suomen Mentorit Facebook page.
• Student organisations: Some student organisations and student nations organise mentoring at the University of Helsinki. To find out more, contact directly the student organisation for your own discipline. For a list of all organisations, see the HYY student union website.