During the program you are expected to meet with your mentee on at least 4 occasions, and you are responsible for booking these meetings yourselves. You also take part in the program’s joint meetings, where you have the opportunity to meet other mentees and mentors for networking purposes, and where you can further contribute your knowledge and experience of the Swedish labour market. This entails a time commitment of around 10 hours in total during the 4 months of the program.

Your role is to act as a sounding board and to provide your mentee with guidance based on his/her specific needs, circumstances and goals. You work together to navigate issues concerning the Swedish labour market, the job-seeking process or a specific industry or sector. For the mentee it is particularly important to have a mentor who feels committed to the program and who is prepared to take the time necessary to build up a rewarding relationship.

No, your assignment as mentor is not to find a job for your mentee. The primary aim of mentorship is to work together with your mentee and use support and guidance to improve your mentee’s possibilities of finding a job that matches his/her qualifications and skills.

Matching is done as far as possible based on educational background, industry, geographical location, and work experience. In some cases, it is not possible to find a mentor with a similar background. In those situations, we prioritize ensuring that every mentee is still offered a mentor, as we believe that mentorship can provide great value even without an exact match.

We consider other factors that can contribute to meaningful conversations and development – for example, the mentor’s experience with the Swedish labour market and recruitment processes. Our goal is to give as many participants as possible the opportunity to join the program and receive support on their path into the job market.

No, unfortunately we are not able to pay any remuneration to our mentors. Being a mentor is a completely voluntary undertaking and helps us to be able to provide a free-of-charge program for the mentees.

Absolutely! The number of applications we receive from potential mentees is increasing each year, and the program needs more mentors now than ever before. We therefore encourage applicants to take on more than one mentee if possible, although this is completely voluntary, of course, and something you select through a proactive choice in your application. If you are matched with two or more mentees, we recommend that you arrange to meet with them at the same time – not only does this save you time, it also gives the mentees an opportunity to learn from each other.

Our mentors come from a mix of different sectors/industries, and roles – just like our mentees! Around half of the mentors in our program come from Mitt Liv’s collaboration partners.

The mentees are individuals with a foreign background and post-secondary education who don’t have a job in Sweden that matches their qualifications. In the program we apply Statistics Sweden’s definition of foreign background, which means individuals who were born outside of Sweden or individuals who were born in Sweden but have two foreign-born parents. The mentees come from a wide range of industries and sectors, and most of them have at least a few years’ work experience.