Barriers to mentoring of graduates in quantity surveying firms: Finding a good fit

Mentoring in consulting firms not only ensures that graduates improve the knowledge and skills in performing work and come out with great work product but also provides psychological, physical and professional support to facilitate their chances for success. The study seeks to determine barriers to successful mentoring practices in quantity surveying firms. The study was descriptive attempting to highlight barriers to mentoring practices for Quantity Surveying Graduates employed by Consulting firms based in Dar es Salaam. Data was collected from 53 questionnaires returned by firms involved in the study out of 65 administered. Analysis of data was done by means of IBM SPSS Statistics 20 using descriptive statistics-frequency and compared means –One Sample T Test features. Findings reveal that there are several significant barriers to mentoring practices in consulting firms including; poor delegation of work, mentor expertize, personal problems, intentional exclusion, bad attitude and, religion and gender difference. Generally, there exist barriers to mentoring of graduates in quantity surveying firms in Tanzania which impede their learning process as well as work performance. This study unveils the barriers to mentoring in consulting firms to inform the practitioners to collaborate in improving the performance of graduates.