The Allegheny Conference on Community Development recently published an article about us in the Pittsburgh Regional Compact in the Spring 2009 Quarterly publication. Below is a short segment about one of their employees who decided to sign up for eMentoring – and loved it!

Paul Leger, senior vice president of the workforce quality program at the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, is one business professional who decided that he could find ten minutes per week to share his story with a mentee. Leger signed up and got connected. His mentee thought that he knew where he wanted to go, how to get there, and what opportunities would be available to him. But Leger was able to provide fresh perspective for his mentee by sharing his own post-high school journey and the career paths he pursued.

Leger helped his mentee look at college and career choices through different lenses so that the student is less likely to experience career disappointment and regret later in life.

“I got a new perspective on the need to use ‘career education’ to expose students to many of the options available to them – options that can shape their futures. Students must find out what kinds of training are needed for the career areas that they find interesting. My experience with high school students shows me that they do not have a broad sense of the possibilities for the future. They need much more exposure to the variety of available careers so that they can make informed choices when they graduate. It is sad to meet individuals who are middle aged and to hear them say, ‘I wish I had known …’ when reflecting on an unsatisfying career choice. That disappointment shouldn’t happen to students who really look at all of the possibilities,” said Leger.

Read the full article here!