What difference can mentoring make to a student's career journey? In this blog, QMU graduate Kitti Laczko reflects on her experience of the Employer Mentoring Programme, from gaining support and confidence as a mentee to returning to the programme as a mentor. Her story highlights the lasting impact of mentoring, career development and the value of sharing knowledge, experience and encouragement with the next generation of students.
Kitti's story
In 2018, after finishing my HND, I started university feeling excited but also slightly out of my depth.
The shift from college to university felt steep. It wasn’t really the workload as much as the sense that everyone else knew how to navigate things. All my classmates sounded confident; they had plans. They knew what they wanted to do next and how to talk about it. I also felt driven, but directionless compared to them.
I was lucky to have supportive lecturers, but the thing that made the biggest difference to me was the QMU Employer Mentoring Programme.
It gave me something that’s hard to find when you’re a student: a consistent, low-pressure space to talk to someone who understood the working world and could help me make sense of it.
The mentoring relationship that stayed with me
At the time, the programme matched students and mentors anonymously. I was paired with a mentor who was, then, Head of Smarter, Wealthier & Fairer Marketing at the Scottish Government.
I remember feeling a little intimidated by that. I felt behind compared to my peers, and I assumed I wouldn’t have much to say, or that I would even make a fool of myself. But my mentor was exactly what I needed.
He helped me understand an industry I’d built up in my mind without any real experience, and he helped me prepare for interviews in a way that boosted my confidence. I have no doubt this played a huge role in securing my first job after graduation.
We still keep in touch, and he even supported me with advice before my interview for the role that I have now.
That’s why I’m such a supporter of the programme. It can start as a university opportunity and become part of your professional life.
Coming back as a mentor
Ever since meeting my mentor, I knew I wanted to do the same for someone else. I just kept putting it off, waiting until I was “ready”. More experienced, more established, more certain of what I was doing.
At the end of last year, with some encouragement from my career coach, I realised that moment probably wasn’t coming. So I stopped waiting and signed up.
What I brought to mentoring was not having all the answers. It was remembering what being a student actually feels like: trying to manage coursework, deadlines, and job hunting, often alongside part-time or full-time work.
Meeting Gwen, and what we did together
After training with QMU's Careers and Employability Service, I was matched with my mentee, Gwen, and quickly realised I’d got lucky.
Gwen is thoughtful, motivated, and genuinely curious. She also had a clear interest in using communications to support charities and help empower people through storytelling. Through her studies, volunteering with Literacy Pirates, and her professional experience so far, she’d already built a strong foundation.
Our sessions were practical. We focused on how to turn her interests into choices that would help her move forward: what experiences to prioritise, how to stay focused on her goals when there are so many distractions through part-time work, and how to approach applications and interviews to help her find good matches.
One of the highlights was having Gwen visit our Charlotte Square office, where she spoke with some of my amazing colleagues about their own careers and experiences in communications and the third sector. It was a simple thing, but it gave her the chance to ask honest questions and hear what real career paths can look like.
During the mentorship, Gwen completed a placement with the Scottish Book Trust and has since secured and started a summer internship with a local media agency. She was also awarded Mentee of the Year at the closing ceremony at the university in April, which was very well deserved.
Why I’d encourage students to sign up
Mentoring is useful because it gives you access to perspectives you might not get elsewhere at this stage in your life. It helps you ask questions you might feel unsure about asking, and it gives you a regular space to reflect while you’re making decisions, not after you’ve made them.
It also helps you make decisions with more clarity. You get a chance to talk things through with someone who isn’t assessing you and isn’t competing with you, just supporting you.
If you’re considering it, I’d say sign up and don’t let your fears sabotage you. You don’t need to be “ready”. You just need to be willing to have honest conversations and act on what you learn. That’s all.
