Immigrants with professional qualifications face unique challenges in adapting personally and professionally to new environments. This "double culture shock" experience may result in disengagement from the professional community due to perceived barriers to integration, with subsequent negative impact on employment prospects and professional role identification. The role of mentors in facilitating professional engagement by foreign-trained pharmacists within the pharmacy profession has not previously been described in detail. This qualitative study examined the different mentoring strategies used by mentors and foreign-trained pharmacists negotiating the licensure process in Canada. Using a categorization scheme described previously by major researchers, activity logs of mentors and mentees were examined and coded based on use of mentoring strategies. Focus groups and interviews were also undertaken with separate groups of mentors and mentees to discuss the use of these mentoring strategies for foreign-trained pharmacists. Results suggest pharmacist-mentors relied most heavily upon situative-apprenticeship and humanistic perspectives in their mentoring relationships, and infrequently used critical-constructivist mentoring activities or techniques. While mentees reported a high level of satisfaction with their mentors and the mentoring experience, they also expressed a desire for more activities of a critical-constructivist nature as a way of assisting them in mitigating the double culture shock they experience during the licensure process.