Selection begins before the interview: The role of mentoring in building employability and professional identity

Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) experiences, and internships in particular, constitute structured settings where graduates can translate theoretical knowledge into professional practice. Among the factors shaping the effectiveness of this pre-professional experience, the presence of a mentor emerges as particularly influential for learning, job-search success, and future employment outcomes (Chin et al. 2020). Mentors provide both career-related support and psychosocial support, which nurtures their emerging professional identity, self-efficacy, and self-worth (Higgins and Kram 2001). Positioned at the intersection between academic and professional systems, mentors act as liminal figures who accompany graduates as they move from a student identity toward a future professional one (Ibarra and Obodaru 2016). This raises the central question addressed in this study: how does mentoring help graduates navigate the liminal space from being a student towards becoming an emerging professional?