This paper focuses on face-to-face advice provided to two Chinese male migrants to facilitate the transition from an educational to a workplace context. The migrants are completing a course aimed at helping them develop sociopragmatic competence in New Zealand English and as part of this course undertake workplace internships. The paper examines how their workplace mentors advise them during the internships, and the ways in which the migrants respond. The advice is given explicitly and directly, although the discourse also provides considerable evidence of attention to relational aspects of interaction. Overall, the analysis suggests that advice-giving interactions are experienced positively by the skilled migrants in our data, and that they contribute to easing their transition to employment in New Zealand organisations.