Me and my shadow

WORK EXPERIENCE: Michael Warshafsky has had a busy summer. The 18-year-old spent 60 days job-shadowing 60 different people in 60 different professions and then writing a blog about it.

Warshafsky, a first-year student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, is not sure what career he will choose. But the experience of following people in jobs as varied as rabbi and waitress will give him an insight into the demands of a wide range of professions. “Instead of taking a low-paid summer job, I made the decision to invest in my future, and my potential career paths,” Warshafsky explained in The Guardian.

Career counsellor Katharine Hansen agrees that job-shadowing is a good way to find a potential career. “The internet has opened up whole new worlds of information and is a fantastic resource for researching companies and careers during a job search,” she writes on the Quintessential Careers website. “But for all its wealth of information, even the internet can’t beat the experience of learning about a company or career by experiencing it in person in the shadow of a working professional.”

Hansen adds that job-shadowing is not just for students. “The experience can be just as valuable for established job-seekers considering changing careers,” she writes.

"The internet can't beat experiencing a job in person." Katharine Hansen

Warshafsky found his job-shadowing partners through personal and family contacts. But universities often provide job-shadowing programmes, according to careers expert Penny Loretto. Before starting your job-shadow, find out the company’s dress code and prepare some useful questions about the job. “Once the shadowing experience is over, be sure to immediately send out a thank-you note that highlights what you enjoyed most and that expresses your gratitude for the time and effort the job-shadow sponsor took out of his/her busy day,” Loretto says.

Meanwhile, job-shadowing can also be used by companies as a way of training new employees as well as staffers who have been transferred within the company, according to HR expert Susan Heathfield. In these situations, the experienced worker can function as a mentor to the new colleague. “Job-shadowing helps employees absorb the values, norms, and standards of an organization, because the employee sees them in everyday action and application in the work environment,” Heathfield says.

Warshafsky is enthusiastic about his own experience in extreme job-shadowing: “If you’re leaning towards a particular career path, go and spend a day with someone in the industry and trust me, by the end you’ll know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether it’s right for you.”