Mentoring experiences and career-related outcomes of highly skilled migrant women in Australia: A qualitative study

Abstract

Mentoring is a powerful tool for career advancement. Highly skilled migrant women generally face employment barriers in Australia due to multilevel barriers, categorized into macro (Australian government visa policy), meso (discrimination at the workplace), and micro (individual factors) levels. However, limited studies have explored the mentoring lived experiences of highly skilled migrant women in developing their careers in the Australian labor market. Therefore, this research explores the mentoring experiences through conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews with 27 highly skilled migrant women. The analysis identified three mentoring benefits: developing careers, gaining specialized skills, and fostering personal growth. Highly skilled migrant women were supported in their personal and professional careers through the mentoring sessions, whether in structured or unstructured conversations. These novel findings contribute to the migrant employment and career literature in terms of filling the empirical gap, as well as providing meso (managerial) and micro implications.