School-to-work transition: Mentor career support and student career planning, job search intentions, and self-defeating job search behavior

• Study examines the relation between mentor career support and student career planning and job search.
• Mentor career support is positively related to student protégé career planning.
• Mentor career support is positively related to job search intentions.
• Mentor career support is negatively related to student self-defeating job search behavior.
• Career self-efficacy fully mediates the relations.

We hypothesized and tested a model where mentor career support predicts college student career planning, job search intentions, and self-defeating job search behavior via student career self-efficacy. Using survey responses collected at two points in time from college students near graduation who were mentored by working business professionals for 8 months in a formal hybrid university-sponsored mentoring program, results showed that mentor career support was positively related to student career planning and job search intentions and negatively related to student self-defeating job search behavior. In addition, results indicated that student career self-efficacy fully mediated the relations between mentor career support and the outcomes. The findings have important implications for future mentoring and job search research. They also provide practical guidance for improving college students' career planning and job searches.