Shadowing a Professional Career Mentor

PROJECT: Shadowing a Professional Career Mentor

International Employment for US Citizens

INTRODUCTION:

Job shadowing is an excellent method of discovering whether a professional career field or job is a good choice for you. Shadowing gives you a sense of the “real world.” For this project, you find someone working in a career you are considering and arrange to follow and observe that person at work for a full day. Then you report on what you have seen and learned. (If you cannot arrange to observe someone for a full workday, please select another project to complete and submit.) Finally, you write a letter thanking your "Mentor" for allowing you to shadow him or her.

PLEASE NOTE: the written component of this project is broken into two distinct parts. The first part is to be completed before you shadow your Mentor; the second part is completed afterwards.  Read through the entire project carefully before you begin.

PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS:

Planning phase: To be completed before you shadow your Mentor.

Find someone employed in a professional career field that you are considering whom you would like to observe at work. This person may be someone you, your friends, or your family knows, someone you have worked for during the summer or an alumnus from your university, to name a few possibilities.

Arrange to shadow your Professional Mentor at work. Please make it clear to your Mentor that you will be with him or her for a full day, that you will be taking notes throughout the day, and that you will have prepared some questions that you would like to ask him or her. You may complete these arrangements via phone or e-mail but make sure that you record and keep copies of all communications about these arrangements.

Contact data.  Ask (or look up) your Mentor for the following information and write it in your MS Word document: his or her name (and the correct spelling), organizations address, title and the length of time the person has held the position.  Insert this information into your MS Word document titled: "Shadowing a Mentor"

Identify Mentor.  Write a paragraph addressing how and why you selected this person as your Professional Career Mentor. Justify your choice of mentors by explaining why you selected this person. How will shadowing this particular person help you?  Record these paragraphs in your MS Word document.

Arrangements.  Write a paragraph recounting how you arranged to shadow your Mentor. Include copies of any letters or e‑mails and summaries of any phone calls or meetings in place these in your MS Word document.

Employer Research .  Research the position of the person you intend to shadow. You may use the Occupational Outlook Handbook , www.careeronestop.org, any of the career resources gathered on your career center web site, or any other web sources.  Based on your research, write a few paragraphs describing the position your Mentor holds. Copy and Record in your Word document the closest job description that you can locate.  You can locate most job descriptions at www.careeronestop.org.

Read your textbook, chapter 19, for guidelines concerning how to conduct research. Or, using the career links on your Career Center web site, find tips on what to look for as you conduct research.  Check out your textbook chapter on employer research, particularly figure 19.1.

Research the organization where your Mentor works. You may use the Internet, magazines, newspapers or other sources.

Organizational Profile.  Write a brief organizational profile (figure 19.1 in your textbook, including (at minimum) such information as number of employees, the location of its office, its industry and major products or services, its target market (local, regional, national, etc.), and the amount of time the organization has been in existence.  Document your sources.  Using the organizational profile located in your textbook, record your research in your MS Word document.

Based on the position and organizational profiles, what do you think a day of work is like for your Mentor? What takes up most of his or her time? Describe the activities and responsibilities you expect to observe when you are shadowing your Mentor.  You may be a little incorrect but make your best guess based on what you learned from your research. When you meet up with your Mentor, you want to have a reasonable idea of what the job entails within that organization.  Write up your expectations and insert them into your MS Word document.

Questions.  Prepare at least five questions to ask your Mentor, keeping in mind that a few well thought-out questions can increase your chances of being remembered positively by your Mentor. (Do not forget to ask your Mentor your questions and write down his or her answers when you move into the Action Phase of this project.) Record your five questions in your MS Word document.

Observe Action Phase:
 
Observe your Mentor at work for a full day by following your Mentor around.

You should approach your shadowing experience as you would a real job. You should dress and act like a professional, following professional etiquette such as shaking hands when appropriate and saying “please” and “thank you.” Dressing and acting professionally may help you in your shadowing experience as you will be meeting professionals in your career field and building your network of contacts.  Incidentally, and make sure you record the contact information for many of the people that you meet for subsequent networking purposes.

Be prepared with some questions but expect to spend the majority of your day listening, observing and taking notes on your observations.

Pay attention not only to the activities your Mentor does throughout the day, but the work culture and environment. Does your Mentor work in a cubicle, in a shared work area, or in an office? What is the work culture like? Is it formal or casual? Is there a lot of teamwork or little interaction? How are conflicts, if any, resolved? What are the meetings like? Did anything you observed surprise you or differ from what you thought it would be like?  Record your observations regularly and at the end of the day summarize them and insert them into your MS Word document

Evaluation Phase: (to be completed after shadowing your Mentor)

Schedule.  After your mentoring shadowing experience is complete, provide a schedule of the day, beginning with the time you arrived and going through the time that the work day ended. Do not go into detail here (you will do that later); rather, list by times what you observed throughout the day (e.g., “8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m., planning meeting with …”).  Record your actual schedule in your MS Word document.

Learning Outcomes.  Write an account of what you observed and what you learned. You can organize your entire account by time, as a more extensively detailed version of the schedule above, or you can organize it in any manner you find useful. Include a summary of your mentors' responses to the questions you prepared in advance.  Comment on work culture, environment, personal interactions, meetings, etc. Discuss anything that surprised you or that differed from your expectations.

Conclude your report with an evaluation of what you would and would not like about this position or field based on what you learned through your research and observations. Please explain as much as you can about the day and the results and how it may have influenced you (good or bad) , to seriously consider this professional field and record these in your MS Word document for this project.
Thank You Phase:

Read about thank-you letters in Chapter 20 of your textbook. There are many resources on how to write effective thank you letters on the Internet and in your textbook.  These include vault.com, careerbuilder.com, quintessentialcareers.com, and others noted on your Career Center web site After you feel confident about writing these types of letters, use the ideas below to write your letter of appreciation to your Mentor. 

• Thank-you letter for shadowing

Write a thank-you letter to your model. Your thank-you letter must be flawless. We would suggest you send your thank-you letter within 24 hours.  Record this thank you letter in your MS Word document.