Focus on Careers and Employability - Value of Workshadowing

In the launch edition of Royal Holloway's School of Management new blog the focus was on Careers' and Employability. This included an insightful article about the value of workshadowing from Royal Holloway's Academic Director for the Year in Business programme, Dr Catherine Harbor. https://managementroyalholloway.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/april-2018/

This article is particularly relevant for our YIB students preparing to secure themselves a placement.

Job Shadowing
By Dr Catherine Harbor, Lecturer So that summer internship with PwC or the hot advertising agency didn’t work out, and you’ve ended up working at your local supermarket, or at a holiday camp or theme park. That’s still good, because it’s work and it’s experience – but it might not give you the insight you want into the professional position you’d like to hold eventually.
How about job shadowing? This is when you observe a professional in their job; you are not likely to get hands-on experience, but it will give you some insight into what they do.



If you do have a job, ask your line manager whether it might be possible to spend a few days shadowing different management positions where you are working. Or exploit your contacts: Mum, Dad, uncles, aunties, cousins, that friend who graduated last year and scored a great job. Ask them whether there might be opportunities for job shadowing at their organisation. Or approach a company yourself: send them your CV along with a cover letter explaining the role(s) you would like to shadow and how this could benefit you.
So why bother? You’ll get some idea about a job you might be considering for the future. You’ll get an understanding of the workplace and can build your network of contacts. And it may help you decide whether your dream job is really that, or might just be a nightmare