Salem High School

Salem, Missouri

Teacher: John Hendricks

 

 

 

Job-Shadowing; It’s Not For Everyone

By Jamie Faulkner

 

 

Almost everybody knows what it is like to be young and have your whole future in front of you and not know what you are going to do with it.  I know first hand about this.  I went from wanting to be a police officer, to a doctor, to a lawyer, to a marine biologist, and then on.  I finally decided on what I was going to do, be a mortician that is until I had to shadow it.  I went in that morning set on my ways.  No one was going to change my mind about it.  I left that evening changed; I was not going to be a mortician.  I knew it was not for me. If I hadn’t of shadowed it, I might have ended up with a career I hated and that wasn’t for me.

       

Job shadowing not only helped me, but it is a very important tool used by many to witness first hand what careers are like. Job shadowing not only helps the student but it also helps the employer.  Many students around the country participate in the national Groundhog Job Shadow Day. The students are able to go to hospitals, construction sites, businesses, and numerous amounts of other places.

       

Groundhog Job Shadow Day begins a year of effort all over the country to help children in grades eighth through the twelfth, learn workplace skills.  It shows students that work and school go together by showing the students how academic skills are applied in the workplace.  Job shadowing also allows the students to see new technology and job shadowing helps them to build interpersonal and interview skills.

       

The national Groundhog Job Shadow Day has been around since 1998.  Last year two million students shadowed 75,000 different workplaces.

Not only does job shadowing help students, it also helps businesses.  It allows businesses to show off their companies to the students who just might consider a career in their business of industry.  It allows businesses to let the students know about the knowledge and skills it takes to succeed in the workplace.  It helps to establish closer more understanding working relationships with local educators.  It allows the businesses to show their support for local schools.  It also helps in tying together that school equals success.

       

How does job shadowing work, you might be asking?  A student must fill out papers, stating that he or she is interested in a certain career, get a parents signature and then turn it in to the appropriate teacher or supervisor.  It might be the counselor, or in my school, it is the A+ coordinator.  The student will be assigned then to a certain place of work.  It might be the hospital, a local business, or even a mortuary.  On the day of the interview, the student needs to dress like he or she is going to work.  If the student is going to a bank, he or she needs to dress nice.  If they are going to a construction site, he or she needs to wear something that is appropriate attire for that type of work, which could be jeans and a T-shirt.  The student must behave nice, ask questions and learn as much as possible from the job shadow.  After the student is done he or she will have a series of questions to answer about what they learned from their experience.  In some places they even have to write reports about their experience.

       

In certain communities job shadowing is required. Teachers are trained to encourage it, and some even have to take courses on how it works, and how to animate it.  In the community in which I live, it is encouraged to job shadow.  Almost all the businesses will participate in it, and there is a community effort from the parents, the businesses or industries, the students, the teachers, and the administration.  It usually takes about half a day to conduct a job shadow, but could go as long as the full day if the business or industry is far away.

       

So far, only good things can be said for job shadowing.  It helps the student.  It helps the business.  It is a win-win situation.  The outcome for job shadowing looks good. Many believe that the number of people participating in job shadowing will continue to grow into something of huge numbers. Maybe even someday everyone, or almost everyone that is, will be happy with their job, because they got to shadow someone and rule out all the jobs that they do not like, and pick out the good ones that they are interested in.

      

Job shadowing is an important thing.  I’m glad that I took part in it, or today I might be on my way to “mortician school.”  If you’re still in school, get involved in a job shadow.  If there is no programs like the Groundhog

Job Shadow Day, then contact a place of work that you are interested in and set the shadow up yourself.  If you’re out of high school, and maybe even out of college, and have a career firmly established then allow a student to come and shadow you.  Remember that children are the future, and we need to help them now, so they can help us later.   [Back]