With my school days coming to a close I began to think about the summer between high school and university. This can be an awkward time as many students are not qualified for the jobs that are available and most are only able to get work at camps, shops or as entry-level office staff.
Dinner with my family was a perfect time to brainstorm summer opportunities. My brother said that he wished he had job-shadowed people when he was my age, so on that basis I began to develop a plan: to job-shadow 60 unique professionals in 60 days and create an online blog, titled, appropriately, 60 Jobs in 60 Days.
Instead of taking a low-paid summer job, I made the decision to invest in my future, and my potential career paths. Although I will be pursuing a life sciences degree at university next year, I didn’t have a clear vision of what I am interested in regarding my future career and I knew that this was the perfect summer to experiment.
Students are under pressure to pick a career path early on so there is value in getting exposure before having to make that choice. I also knew that the experience would give me an advantage over other job applicants in the future as the project differentiates me. I have cultivated 60 unique contacts in my network, and have a lot of adventures to tell.
My first task was to develop an online presence by learning skills and working with a web developer to get my site to how I envisioned it. Next, finding people to job-shadow was easier than I thought it would be. Through family contacts, emailing and cold calling potential and interesting people in the news and social media, I was able to schedule my job-shadows. Although I knew initially that many of these jobs would not be part of my future, I nevertheless wanted to expose myself to as wide a range as possible.
Now that the marathon has come to a close I have had time to reflect on my summer. I am surprised that nearly all the people I shadowed tend to have good job satisfaction and have not grown bored after a lifetime in the same career. It was definitely worth spending two months figuring out my career path as I have gained not only a clearer idea of my career direction, but also have 60 contacts from a variety of industries. Some of my favourites experiences have been observing dental surgeries, a city council in action, and a judge in court and behind the scenes in his chambers. I’ve seen how a newspaper is run, and learned how to analyse a urine sample, plan a subdivision, run a startup, negotiate a business deal, and even run an art gallery.
Another valuable lesson I’ve learned is that people are willing to help if you take the time to reach out in an honest way. I’ve contacted celebrities, business executives, reporters, and all types of professionals and the response and feedback has been fantastic. I quickly learned how to introduce myself and become comfortable in all different kinds of environments and with a variety of people. Meeting an interesting person each day, exploring a new part of the city, and developing organisational and people skills were things I had not anticipated at the beginning of the project. If you are interested in job-shadowing I strongly suggest exposing yourself to a variety of different careers consecutively. By doing them back to back you can compare them and see the pros and cons of each.
Now that I’m shifting the website into a future resource for students, I know that I want a career where each day brings fresh challenges and opportunities to connect with a diverse group of professionals. If you’re leaning towards a particular career path, go and spend a day with someone in the industry and trust me, by the end you’ll know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether it’s right for you.
