How to Put Shadowing on Your Resume (With Examples)

If you have limited work experience, job shadowing can be a great way to gain some valuable skills and fill out your resume.

Simply put, job shadowing is when you follow a member (or members) of a company or organization for a short period of time to get familiar with their daily responsibilities.

Here’s how to showcase shadowing experience on your resume:

1. List it in your work experience section

Shadowing should go in the experience section of your resume, along with any jobs and internships you’ve held. This helps you demonstrate industry exposure and practical knowledge.

Use a clear job title, like “Shadowing Experience” or “Job Shadow Experience.”

2. Include the company name and dates

Next, provide the name of the organization where you completed your shadowing experience. If it’s a small company that isn’t particularly well-known, offer a brief summary of the organization itself. For example:

“Riverside Medical Center – a leading regional healthcare clinic”

Be sure to also include the dates during which you completed your shadowing opportunity.

3. Include hard numbers

Just like with internships and jobs, you want to show employers what you learned during your shadowing experience.

When you write your resume, include bullet points with hard numbers to illustrate the scope of your experience. For example, if you shadowed a medical professional, mention how many surgeries you watched being performed or how many patients you and the doctor you shadowed attended to per day.

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2 examples of shadowing on a resume

Here are two examples of a shadowing experience on a resume:

Frequently asked questions about putting shadowing on a resume

Here are answers to some of the questions we get asked the most about putting shadowing on a resume:

1. Should I put shadowing on my resume?

Yes, you should put shadowing experience on your resume if it’s relevant to the job you want and you have little to no full-time work experience yet. Shadowing provides you with an in-depth look at the daily duties of someone working in your target industry while demonstrating to employers that you’re eager to pick up new skills.

2. Does shadowing count as work experience?

Shadowing doesn’t carry the same weight as full-time work experience. However, because it’s job-related, it can still be placed in the experience section of your resume.

3. How do you describe shadowing experience?

You describe shadowing experience on a resume similar to how you would describe work experience. If you had the opportunity to work hands-on on some tasks while shadowing, describe what skills you learned from that. Or, if you exclusively observed others do their job, provide an overview of the type of work you watched being performed.