From week two onwards you should begin making contact with potential work-shadow hosts to arrange your Career Exposure Day. Your first contacts are likely to be by telephone or e-mail. Potential hosts may also ask you to write a formal letter of request.

In this unit you will learn some general principles about introducing yourself to strangers and making requests. You will also learn how to do this politely and efficiently by telephone and email. In Unit 4 you will learn more about letters.

Arranging your Career Exposure Day

It is a good idea to begin by building up a list of potential work-shadow hosts in your field of interest.

Experience shows that the best way to arrange a successful Career Exposure Day is to have more than one workplace in mind. Contact the workplace that you would most like to visit first. Be polite but persistent and if it doesn’t work out, move on to the next contact on your list.

Experience also shows that many successful Career Exposure Days have been arranged after several unsuccessful attempts. Remember that a failed attempt can be an opportunity to practice and learn, or even to make a new contact!

Locating contacts

There are several ways of locating potential work-shadow hosts. Here are a few ideas:

	Research. Search the internet, newspaper classified sections, etc. and note down names and /or positions of possible initial contacts. If you cannot find the name of an individual, phone the workplace and ask a secretary or someone in the personnel department for the name of a person who could help.
	Personal contact. Ask relatives, friends, classmates, or your former teachers to suggest people who may be able to help you.
	CEPC. The Careers Education and Placement Centre has a library of materials on employers in Hong Kong. If you have researched your field thoroughly, the CEPC help desk may be able help with the names of contacts. But please remember that it is not the responsibility of the CEPC to arrange your Career Exposure Day for you!

Remember also that potential work-shadow hosts can suggest names of other contacts. If you feel that your request is about to be rejected, ask for the names and phone numbers of other potential contacts

Explaining what you want to do

If you sound confident and give the impression that you know what you want to do, your contact is likely to be much more agreeable to your request. Make sure that you explain exactly who you are, what you want to do and why you want to do it.

Explain exactly what you want to do on your Career Exposure Day. The most important thing you need to explain is that you want to work-shadow and interview an employee. Work-shadowing means that you will stay with the employee and observe his or her day-to-day work without causing too much disturbance. You should also explain that you are very happy to do some work yourself on the day.

Make all your arrangements as soon as possible

Once a contact has agreed to your visit, it is important to make detailed arrangements as soon as possible. Identify who your work-shadow host on Career Exposure Day will be (this may not be the same person as your contact) and discuss arrangements with them in detail. Check on times, ask if there is any work that you can do on the day or if it is possible to arrange a mock job interview.

Remember that it is a course requirement that you:

	Spend a full working day at the workplace, minimum of 6 hours
	Go to the workplace alone

Please make sure that your work-shadow host is aware of these requirements.

Keep a record

It is important to keep a record of all your contacts and what happened when you contacted them. It is also good professional practice to keep a note of details of what you have agreed and what you still have to arrange. You can keep a record of all the contacts you make on the contact record form. The completed form should be submitted to your teacher.

Telephoning

A formal telephone call to a contact at a workplace is different from an informal call to friends in several ways. In the Telephoning section of the EPC web, you can learn more about how to make a request by phone and listen to some simulated calls where students try to arrange a visit to a workplace.

E-mail

If you decide to make some of your contacts by e-mail instead of telephoning, you will need to consider carefully the content and style of your e-mails. Formal e-mails are different from informal e-mails between friends in several ways. The E-mail section of the EPC web will help you to compose more formal e-mails for the Career Exposure Project. Since you will be making a request in your first e-mail, this is likely to be very similar to a request letter.

Tasks

Learn how to introduce yourself to potential work-shadow hosts. Learn how to communicate politely and efficiently by telephone and e-mail.

Resources

The EPC web – Telephoning
The EPC web – E-mail

Can I have a few minutes of your time?

You may have seen this video in the first session of the course. If so, you may also remember that it is a good source of advice and language for making contact with employers. You can watch the video again in the Language Resource Centre.

And don’t forget that the Virtual English Centre is your best one-stop resource for improving your all-round English skills.

Deadline

Begin to make telephone calls and write emails to arrange your Career Exposure Day. Prepare before you call with the Telephone Contact Guidelines. Keep a record of contacts on the contact record form and submit it to your teacher later.