Abstract

Women seeking employment often face barriers such as limited professional networks, reduced access to career guidance, and lack of consistent support during the job-search process. This study examined the effects of a social impact mentoring program that connected women seeking employment with women professionals who served as mentors. Participants included 11 mentees who were seeking employment opportunities and 11 mentors who were employed or recently employed in professional roles. Using a mixed-methods pre-post design, the study collected quantitative survey data and open-ended responses before and after four virtual mentoring sessions. Mentee measures focused on confidence in securing employment and readiness in key job-search behaviors, including goal clarity, resume preparation, interview preparation, networking, communicating strengths, and follow-through on job-search steps. Mentor measures focused on self-reported confidence in communication and leadership skills. Findings showed that mentees experienced statistically significant gains in overall job-search readiness, with confidence and career-goal clarification emerging as the most widely shared themes in their qualitative responses. Mentors showed minimal change on direct pre-post Likert items, a pattern consistent with a baseline ceiling effect given the high educational attainment of the cohort but reported uniformly positive retrospective change ratings and described a renewed sense of motivation and calling as a reciprocal benefit of mentoring. Time and session spacing emerged as the most consistent challenge across both groups, and mentor training engagement appeared to function as a meaningful scaffold particularly for less experienced mentors. Of the 11 initial mentor-mentee pairs, seven completed all four sessions. The findings suggest that social impact mentoring can be a strong but limited intervention. It is well-suited for increasing confidence, clarifying career direction, and strengthening professional skills for both mentors and mentees.

Degree

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Instructional Psychology and Technology

Rights

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