Communicating With An Unresponsive Internship Supervisor

Communicating With An Unresponsive Internship Supervisor http://conselium.com You start to wonder … is it you? Did you say something wrong? Did they make a wrong decision hiring you? In a matter of minutes your mind is racing with a million different questions, when the one person who could talk to you to make your life easier just isn’t answering your emails. What’s a student to do? Many people would go straight over their supervisors’ head and get some answers, especially if you have started working there already. Taking that road could cause animosity between you and your supervisor in the long run. And if you have not quite started your job, there are other ways beyond bulldozing your way to answers. Diane Gottsman, a well-known modern manners and etiquette expert, gives a few solid tips on her site for helping smooth over the rocky road. 1.  Send a followup email. This is essential for any student getting no response from a supervisor if they haven’t even started the job and even moreso if they already have. I personally have done followup emails with much success. Don’t make the email malicious sounding or have harsh tones, but also don’t seem like you are just re-sending the last email. Make sure you let whoever the email is for know that you are just following up/checking in. A few keywords can make all the difference. 2.  Ask for a date when you can expect an answer. Again never ask this in a harsh tone, but you have the right to at least know when you should look out for an answer. It means that you won’t be kept in the dark, but your supervisor also has something to write on their calendar. As said above, a followup email could do a world of difference, so adding one of these in right before the date of “expected answer” would work as well. forums.thesims.com Some side solutions to consider for your current issue are below. These are some things to look into or to consider before deciding what to do next. 1.  Speak to some of your co-workers. Have they had better luck with your supervisor? Do they work with your supervisor more closely so maybe you could have them help you get your message across? Having friends in the workplace can be a good and bad thing depending on how you go about them and how well you nourish them. Having way too close of friends could cause certain bosses to think (say if something were to happen) that you collaborated with them resulting in a disastrous ending, but not having friends at all could have your bosses looking at you like you are hard to work with, which may cause them to be more unresponsive towards you or to give you much and much less work or the exact opposite more and more work. 2.  Is your boss just really busy? Depending on your type of internship, you may work for a place where your supervisor just has so much on their plate that you fall through the cracks. Yes, they hired you so they should make sure you are involved, but so should you. If you would like to keep this internship and possibly move up in it, you have to make yourself known to your higher-ups and that you aren’t feeling heard. Request a meeting with your supervisor, if you can. 3.  Get to work earlier than you normally do. You may be asking, “why should I do that?” Because getting there before your supervisor gets there means you may have a small window of alone time to speak to them about your concerns. Doing so may make them aware of your commitment to your job and that you just want your voice to be heard. Your supervisor can be one your biggest allies in your future career. They can be the reason why you get a job or not. They are the person you go to for when you have questions. Having an unresponsive supervisor can honestly be the most frustrating of situations and a steep hill to climb, but it is not impossible. It is all about how you approach said situations and the responses you get back. If you ultimately decided to put in your two weeks, then so be it; that does not mean you are a quitter. It just means it wasn’t for you and better things are on the horizon. Just make sure you end things on a good note!