Job Shadowing

A new tool for career search & planning- by Shadab Nazmi

“Should I do Bachelors in Business Administration or should I become a doctor or an engineer?” –That comes in everyone’s mind after high school, while choosing a career and it is toughest to decide a right career at that age. Job shadowing is a great solution used help kids decide about their career. What is job shadowing? Job shadowing is basically experiencing the real life professions under real professional people by spending hours or a day with them.

It is natural to select or reject the options for one’s life but the real challenge is to use one’s hobby and mould it into a career. And there are only a few people who get a chance to decide their career when they are a kid. Let’s take a common example of a normal kid who observes many happenings around him, sometimes he get fascinated towards air planes and wants to be a pilot or sometimes he likes cooking so he wants to make his career in cooking. To help him understand his type of career Job shadowing may be used.
Say for example Rajan wants to become a doctor as soon as he finishes his school, “After becoming a doctor, the life is real easy and comfortable.” Rajan is living in hallucination and he needs to know the reality, but he can’t easily figure out the real life experience of a doctor. Job shadowing will give him a chance to spend a day with a doctor and see his real life experience as a doctor. That will definitely help him see reality from close corners & understand life of being a real doctor. Same applies for all other career choices.

Job shadowing is really successful in European and American countries. For instance during summer time teen agers in Washington DC could be found in Suits and Ties, walking with a senator to experience the real life political situations and works. They work in the White House or in the Capitol Building with some congressmen to build up their political profile for their career in future. Besides, some teen agers can be found spending some time with a business man or with a teacher to build up their profile in their respective career choice.

Looking at the problem of choosing a career in India job shadowing would be a cost effective & efficient solution if applied in schools, where kids spend their most of the time. School can plot a day for kids to job shadow in their respective field of interest. It would be interesting to carve a project in English class or any other class where students could be asked to make a research paper or talk about his day while job shadowing. This would not only add interesting participatory stuff in the classes but will also teach students to learn more about different career choice.