Frequently Asked Questions

The Advisory Mentorship Programme is a four-month structured mentorship programme consisting of a one-hour session each month, from August to November.

The consistency and timings of meetings would be dependent on the individual availability of mentees and their mentors. In terms of the content covered in each meeting, while we do ultimately leave it to the discretion of the individual mentee-mentor pairs, we have also provided a suggested structure for each month’s session in our Mentee Manual, which is distributed to all confirmed mentees before the commencement of the programme.

Very briefly, we recommend the first month’s session be used for you and your mentor to set some ground rules and expectations, and to get to know one another better. The second session on “understanding career interests” could be a chance for your mentor to share how they navigated their own career path, to provide you with some insights on how to bridge the gap between school and work. The third session on “understanding next steps” consolidates the discussions of the past two sessions. It is a good time for your mentor to offer you some advice on the practical steps you can take post-mentorship to pursue your occupation(s) of interest. The fourth session on “working on next steps” would allow mentors to offer guidance on how you can proceed from where you are now, to where you want to be. This can be through actionables or tasks, and so on.

Though we have seen very heartening cases of mentors who have helped to arrange internships for their mentees, our mentors are not obliged to provide any internships or other forms of employment to their mentees. This should not be an expectation going into the programme, and we ultimately leave it to the individual mentor's discretion as to how they would like to tailor their guidance and support to their mentees.

Yes! Mentees are encouraged to stay in contact with their mentors and continue the relationship beyond the programme as long as both parties wish to do so. However, do take note that your contact with your Mentor is no longer affiliated with nor facilitated by Advisory after the duration of the programme, but on the basis of your own independence.

In your application, you will be allowed to indicate up to three mentors of your choice. For each of your choices, you will be prompted to share with us in more than 150 words on why you would like to be matched with the particular mentor. (For more information on what we look out for in your application, you may refer to our Sample Application Response.)

In the sign-up form, you will also be prompted to indicate three industries (out of our list of 48) which you are most interested in, as well as to tell us whether you would be open to being matched with a mentor beyond your three choices. In the event that we are not able to allocate to you any of your top three mentor choices, should your application be found suitable, you may be allocated a mentor whose industry or fields of expertise match those of your interest.

Our mentorship website contains a link to our list of 48 industries by which we categorise our mentors’ areas of expertise. If you are experiencing any difficulties in deciding on your industries of interest, we would encourage you to take some time to read through the list, and shortlist a couple of industries that you may be most interested in. Following which, you may use the “Industry” search filter function to find possible mentors from your fields of interest.

We would encourage you to apply either way! One important aspect of mentorship is that you have the opportunity to learn about whether a job or industry is right for you, and we do have mentees who, following the mentorship programme, have decided to embark on other career paths which they had previously not considered. There are many students who are still in their exploratory phases, and it’s perfectly okay to change your mind!

The purpose of collecting your CV would really be to give us a sense of who you are, and we have students from across the whole age range getting matched with mentors. The most important aspect of your application would be what you share with us about the mentors you want to be matched with and why - the most compelling answers are genuine, and you don’t have to have the most experience! Many things count as experience - not just formal work experience of achievements, but also free courses you’ve done on the side, things you’ve read, hobbies you have, etc. We encourage everyone to take the leap - you never know if you’ll be the lucky person to get your first choice mentor!

Absolutely not. The CV we collect from you is a standalone document for us to gain a better understanding of your background and interests. Rest assured that your grades will not be taken into account at all, and our internal team of assessors is also careful to balance against any intuitive biases for language ability — which are biases that unfairly prejudice against some applicants. We also do not accept any referrals from schools or other institutions, so as to ensure a fair playing field for all applicants.

For each of our mentors, they would have indicated the number of mentees (between 1-3) they would be willing to take. Based on what the mentors have indicated, we would then be able to allocate them the relevant number of suitable mentees.

We believe in providing equal access to mentorship opportunities to all students regardless of their background, so there is no need for you to be an expert in your selected field of interest. As the rationale for mentorship is for you to learn more about a particular industry or about a particular role, what we hope to see in your application is a demonstration of your interest in wanting to learn from your mentor and their experiences. Your application should also reflect concrete learning outcomes that you would like to gain from the programme.

If you had previously submitted a response and would like to re-submit a new application, we would appreciate it if you could kindly drop us an email at mentoring@advisory.sg so that we can remove your previous application from our records, before you submit your new one. That being said, we would really encourage you to consider your choices thoroughly before submitting your application, to save yourself the hassle of having to re-submit later on.

Students outside of Singapore can still apply, but unfortunately, you must be a) a Singapore Citizen; b) a Singapore Permanent Resident; or c) one who has spent a significant amount of time in or has a significant connection to Singapore. If you’d like us to bring Advisory to your country, do drop us an email at contact@advisory.sg!