It is sitting there listening to and watching someone do the job.

They’re not answering calls, they’re not entering anything into the computer, they’re not doing paperwork, the most they’re going to be asked to do is “hey can you move your chair a bit, I need to get into that drawer”

In fact, if they tried to do any of those things they’d be kicked right the fuck out, that would be a whole mess of liability issues since they don’t have any of the necessary training or certifications.

They’re observing to see what the job entails. They’re (hopefully) asking questions to see if it’s a good fit for them, and we’re seeing how they react to what they’re hearing and what their attitude is like to see if they’re going to be a good fit.

When I have a job shadow with me, nothing changes about how I do my job except I scoot my chair a little further to the left to make room for them, and between calls I’m chatting mostly with them instead of my coworkers or reading, and once they’re done I have a short questionnaire to fill out about whether I think they’re a good candidate.

They sit there quietly watching and listening to me handle calls, and in between we just chit chat. They usually ask some questions about the calls they heard me take or the job in general (they all seem to ask what the craziest call I ever took was) I usually ask a few of my own to get a feel for them. I tell them stories about the job, crack some jokes, I point out a couple things that I think are neat (like the document we have with information about what we’re supposed to do if we get a call about a loose emu- it happens more often than you’d think)

Then after they leave I have a short questionnaire to fill out about if I think they’re a good candidate or not.

They sit with a call-taker for about 30-45 minutes listening to 911 calls coming in, then go sit with a dispatcher for about the same amount of time to listen to calls being given out over the radio the the field units, then there’s a short, pretty informal interview with the on-duty supervisors and/or someone from our training department.

They’re not getting trained, they’re not expected to retain any of the information or understand everything, and they’re certainly not expected to be able to do the job after sitting with me. It’s pretty much all about vibes. Do they like the vibe of the workplace, and do we like their vibe as a potential coworker.