How to get a good supervisor during your practical training stint

IF you sign up for practical training or need to do an internship, finding someone to work with can be tricky.

Here are some questions you may want to ask before signing the pact.

Why do you do this?

Motivation is important. It is entirely possible that your supervisor just loves to help others in the field.

If so, you might need to look to whether they do it for love of the business, to build their network or to push a particular point of view onto young minds (yes, they’re human so their motivation may not be pure!).

However, it is also likely that the work they are doing is simply part of their key performance indicators, in which case your supervisor may have different goals from you.

Basically, once you know what’s in it for them, you can decide how you work together to suit both parties – or not.

How do you see your role as a supervisor?

The main aim here is to discover style and content. Is the person hands-on or distant? Someone who will nurture you day in and day out or someone who’s there if you need emergency advice? Then you have to match your style to theirs.

You may want to work with someone just like you, or with someone very different so you get a new point of view. It helps at this point to search out a past intern or two just to get an insider heads-up on how your supervisor works.

What do you expect from me?

Some supervisors don’t have any expectations, some come with a complete schedule and most fall somewhere in the middle. Have a chat and then follow up with an email that summarises what you are supposed to do.