Technical jargon: What does shadowing mean?

A term from psychology is suddenly going its own way: Shadowing (English for "to follow like a shadow") was originally a so-called participant observation by ethnologists, then adopted by coaches, mentors or therapists, who observe their clients or patients in their usual setting and then reflect with them on the insights they have gained. Shadowing today, however, can be read more and more frequently as a term in application letters of desperate university graduates who are urgently looking for a job in the communications industry. What substitutes are to lawyers and interns to everyone else, therefore, may soon become shadowers in the advertising and communications industry. Cheap labor. The things people invent when budgets are tight and jobs are scarce. With job shadowing, young people hope to gain insight into an industry or a company with the goal of eventually emerging from the shadowy existence of underpaid workers if they present themselves as bright, curious contemporaries. This is the only way that an internship - usually still poorly paid - can be offered at the end of the shadowing phase.*Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the column "Vom Fach" in the NZZ FOLIO and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms from the field of marketing.