Facebook And Pinterest, Team Up For Women's Mentoring Program Called West, Both Companies Believe In Career Development For Women

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Pinterest and Facebook disclosed a new program on Wednesday that will give one is to one mentorship to support women break into thrive and technical roles in the business. The program's name is WEST or Women Entering and Staying in Tech, will have women staff from three tech firms accessible to be mentors for those women who registered. The program will be introduced in 2015 at the Bay Area.

Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg, has talked repeatedly about the issues that women face in trying to search quality mentorship. She said, "A man and a man at a bar at a hotel during a work trip, that looks like mentoring. A man and a woman at a bar at a hotel on a work trip, that doesn't look like mentoring to anyone."

She added, "WEST is designed to enable 1:1 mentorship for women in the early- to middle-stages of their technology careers," according to its website. "We believe that by providing more direct support, advocacy and community development, we can help more women build rewarding careers in technology."

Facebook repeated the demand for better statement in mentorship on the program's launch. The company released a statement saying, "Mentorship can be incredibly influential in a woman's career, and we're excited to be tackling this challenge together. We believe that by working together and providing more direct support, advocacy, and space for community development, we can create an impactful, scalable, one-on-one mentorship program to help women build and grow meaningful careers in tech."

Pinterest and Facebook were among the group of tech firms that launched diversity numbers during this year's summer. There are only 31% of Facebook's staff are women, while Pinterest was quite better; they have 40% women employees. For employees with technical responsibilities in both firms, the numbers are even worse, Facebook only have 15% and Pinterest have 21% women in the tech team.

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