Participation for Alumni
Who wouldn't have liked to get a taste of different jobs during their studies? Be it only for a day, by giving students an opportunity early on to get to know your company and work place you can make choosing a career easier for students and as result selection of suitable applicants for your company easier as well.
Why Should You Let Yourself Be Shadowed?
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By sharing your experiences, you develop your personal abilities and leadership qualities.
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You provide students with valuable information that you may wish you had had.
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You expand your connections with RWTH Aachen and thus your professional network.
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You have the opportunity to see your job from a student's prospective – and maybe gain other insight as a result.
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Help make studies more practically relevant for students!
What does Job Shadowing mean?
Job shadowing entails one person observing another while they work, in order to get to know the respective career. Job shadowing lasts a day. In contrast to an internship, the observer does not work along with the person they are observing, but rather watches them as they complete their work.
Job shadowing helps students find out about careers and career paths early on and to develop a realistic job profile. This early orientation helps students to find the right specialization during their studies.
How Does Job Shadowing Work?
It's simple: Give us the information directly to create a profile for you and we will make an arrangement. We will advertise the program, you select a student, complete the job shadowing, and give us feedback.
About the costs: Fundamentally, the job shadow assumes the costs for transportation and possible overnight accomodations. It would of course be nice, if your company could arrange a subsidy for these costs.
Preparation
- You fill out an anonymous short profile. Your company and your position are evident from this profile.
- Your short profile will be displayed here on our job shadowing pages.
Advertising
- Job shadowing will be advertised to students by the Career Center.
- Students apply via email.
Selection
- The first screening takes place through us. You will then receive the applications.
- Selection of the candidates takes place through you – or together if you wish.
Implementation
- You and your job shadow agree on a date.
- The job shadowing takes place.
Evaluation
- You gives us brief feedback about your experiences with the job shadowing.
- The job shadow gives us brief feedback about his or her experiences.
What Are Your Responsibilities As A Job Shadowing Host?
Students should know what awaits them. A phone call about expectations and the layout of the day will definitely help both of you prepare.
The organizational requirements of your company must be clarified, for example entry to the building.
Plan th eday. It should be a typical day. Nevertheless you should avoide confidential meetings, in which the job shadow may not participate.
You should take about half an hour to hour for the job shadow at the beginning and end of the day to describe your field of responsibility, present your company, and answer questions.
Overtime is also part of a normal day. Please explain to the job shadow beforehand, what the typical work hours are, so that students can arrange their arrival and departure appropriately.
A brief evaluation of the visit will follow some time after the day. We will call you regarding this.
How Do I Shape A Day with My Job Shadow?
Introduce yourselves to each other, talk about your career path and work experience. Talk about your studies at RWTH Aachen. Ask the job shadow what his or her motivation is and about their career ambitions.
Take a short tour through the company and your department and explain your work place.
About the actual job shadowing: This is about looking outside the box and providing students with a look at what a job after studies looks like. This includes writing emails, even if it seems boring at first to watch someone as they write an email.
Make company reports, newsletters, and similar material available that the job shadow can read when you have a longer telephone call or otherwise occuppied. If possible, give them a task.
Arrange a meeting or lunch with colleagues, whom the job shadow could possibly interview. It would be good of course if the colleagues worked in different fields.
Do you have a meeting? That's great. Take the job shadow with you.
At the end of the day, take some time for a summary and to answer any of the students's remaining questions.
It will not be a normal work day for you but the point of job shadowing is that you work. Realistically you can plan half a day for effective work and half a day for supervision.