For students and graduates still hesitant as to what particular career path they wish to undertake, finding out more about specific professions can be difficult. Even the most detailed of research can often be lacking in really gaining a grasp of what daily life is like in a certain line of employment, and internships that offer the opportunity to gain an insight into this are hard to come by. One possible solution to this problem is the idea of job shadowing; following a specific professional through their working life for a much briefer period of time. Even just a day could be enough to demonstrate that a certain job may or may not be for you.
One student living in Canada took the idea to new extremes, setting out across the Summer to job shadow sixty people in sixty days. The professions he followed ranged hugely, with days spent with everything from dentists, stockbrokers and lawyers to painters and even a professional boxer. Though the scale of his project is unlikely to be something many students are able, or even want, to replicate, its realisation shows that any such research on a vastly smaller scale, for those looking to choose between a smaller number of professionals, could be beneficial.
Some companies offer opportunities such as this as a part of their overall recruitment process, whilst smaller firms are likely to be open the idea if a student makes contact with them first. Any existing contacts through friends, family and past work experience will of course be beneficial, but the relatively unintrusive nature of job shadowing can make it easier to secure than other forms of experience. And sometimes, but it for the right or wrong reasons, it may be the only insight a graduate needs.
