You show up for the orientation meeting with a
sort of mild social anxiety because you’re not sure what it’s
going to be about, or whether you’ll have to do much talking. You’re not even 100% sure you’re going to the right room at the right time, because the instructions
were a little like, information overload; there were so many
numbers and dates and there’s the possibility that you might have gotten
confused. But you end up showing up to the right room anyway, and are lured into comfort
by the nice solid wooden surroundings of the room and the cherubic program
leader. This is the part where you discuss which kind of vocation
you’re going to job shadow in, and your overall attitudes/knowledge/stage of self-actualization
in regard to your career choice. There's this sinking feeling when the program leader
makes you talk to the person next to you about afore-mentioned attitudes/knowledge/stage
of self-actualization but you strike up a comfortable rapport and it’s OK.
The next stage is to apply via the Career
Centre website to various employers, filtering by field
(e.g. journalism, medicine, finance) and then choosing a specific company.
You get to apply to three or four locations, ranking them in
order of preference. And then in the application you have to write several
250-word essays about various topics, e.g. what you know about the vocational
field, what makes you interested in it (incld. relevant experiences and skills
you might possess), and then you have to repeat this process for every position you apply to (the cherubic program leader was not lying, you come to
find out, when he said that you should not leave this stuff to the last minute)--and if you're like me you probably end up applying to positions within only one field so you can copy-paste some of your application answers to other positions.
If you come up with some fantastically deep and
philosophical answers to these questions, and/or at least show some rudimentary
mental engagement while writing them, you’re accepted into the University of
Toronto’s Extern Job Shadowing program! Next up is a second meeting, this time
to discuss logistics of contacting your host and what to wear/how to act,
planning questions to ask them, and generally how to represent U of T
flatteringly and not appear like a slobbering York neanderthal. Rules: no
begging for employment, no inappropriate dress, no bluntly asking how big someone's salary is, etc etc. You have to again talk to the person beside you, this
time preparing questions to ask your host, a lot more painful than last meeting
because it’s like, unless you’re actually really on top of things you’re
thinking about this for the first time and a lot of the conversation is umms
and ahhs and blank stares. After this meeting you have a month before your job shadowing starts.
And so like if you’re as bad as I am you left all the
preparation to the last minute, and so on the morning that you’re supposed to
first meet your host you’re scrambling to think of questions to ask and picking clothes, and the pants you were vaguely planning to wear end up being too tight
(because of course you only try them on right before having to leave, pants which the last time you wore them was in 2011) and the zipper won’t go all the way up so
that pretty much eliminates wearing a tucked-in dress shirt, and all your nice
sweaters are in the wash or lost somewhere, adding to the stress of a blizzard
outside and the fact that you’ve gained weight seeing as your pants no longer
fit. And so by the time you’re out of the house you’re completely out of your
mind with confusion and general social anxiety and a lack of sleep because of
said social anxiety the night before, and of course there’s a huge accident on
the DVP so that you arrive half an hour late (something you should emphatically
do everything that is humanly possible to avoid doing to your host) to the
office of Canada’s #1 News Station with traffic updates on the 1s of each hour so
that your host has already finished the whole tour with the other job shadowing
students. Basically, don’t be like me.
But then things go pretty smoothly. Your frazzle
and anxiety appear outwardly like flushed interest and you get to meet all the employees
and they’re all friendly and nice and give you some valuable tips on how to
approach your career, and you leave the offices feeling much better than you
did when you entered and it’s OK.
The final steps are to write a physical thank-you
letter to your host and to fill out an online reflection form from the U of T Career
Centre, and once all that is done you can request a certificate of
participation. The experience is truly valuable, in my opinion: there’s no
better way to see what a job is actually like than to visit the workplace and
talk to the workers. If you’re on the fence about your career path, as many
people probably are, this is the thing for you. It’s completely free, and runs
twice a year, and is easier than I make it sound here. Go for it.
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