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Although a substantial body of mentoring research has been conducted on students attending four-year colleges, the interplay of career-related mentoring, ambiguity tolerance, and job search effort and behavior has not been seriously investigated. Therefore, we examined the relationship between career-related mentoring and ambiguity tolerance, as well as job search effort and behavior, for the purpose of understanding how to better assist undergraduate college students achieve preliminary job search success. Data were collected via pencil surveys administered to 300 undergraduate students selected by purposive sampling from four colleges in Seoul, Korea. Correlation analysis and covariance structure analysis were conducted to examine the relationships between variables. A Sobel test was also conducted to check the mediation effect of the model. Results were consistent with our hypotheses and showed that there was a significant, indirect, positive effect of career-related mentoring on job search effort and behavior, mediated through ambiguity tolerance. Our study contributes to career-related mentoring and job search research by providing empirical evidence supporting the results. It has implications for universities, mentoring program design, and career guidance professionals.

Applying a theoretical framework of self‐efficacy (Bandura, 1977), we tested a theoretical model that certain practitioner and organizational characteristics (e.g., age, education, training and task experiences, and organizational climate) facilitate general self‐efficacy (GSE) and task‐specific self‐efficacy (TSSE). Our sample included continuing higher education practitioners in Korea (N = 244). We found a significant and positive correlation between autonomy and support as well as between GSE and TSSE. The results of the hierarchical multiple‐regression analyses showed that although they were minimal, the effects of task experiences on TSSE were statistically significant, whereas there were no significant effects of task experiences on GSE. Thus, TSSE appears to be a task‐specific construct that yields meaningful relations with other task‐related organizational constructs. The autonomy variable was the most significant determinant for GSE and TSSE. By contrast, participants' training experience failed to emerge as significant determinants on GSE and TSSE. Possible explanations for this pattern of finding are discussed.

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