Your goal when meeting your new supervisor is to clearly demonstrate you're not a problem. You're smart, but not so smart as to possibly be construed as any kind of threat. If you're given the opportunity, make a full verbal presentation and then leave behind a formal memo outlining what you presented. If you're told there's no time, make your elevator pitch and set up another appointment; don't leave behind the full memo since it could be used to avoid a full meeting. If you're confronted with a problem that you anticipated, frame it as an obstacle and launch into your pitch. If you're surprised, explain that the problem is news to you and offer to get back to the supervisor with information as soon as possible.
TACTICS
Attitude: Be welcoming but entirely businesslike. You're a good soldier with a sense of urgency.
Preparation: Draft a formal memo reporting on the status of all your projects, your staff, and your budget projections. Use this memo to prepare an oral presentation that touches on all the important points. Then, develop an elevator pitch.
Timing: Initiate the meeting by setting up an appointment with the supervisor or their assistant.
Behavior: Dress the way you normally would at work. Make sure to maintain eye contact and use your formal body language.
ADAPTATIONS
This script can be modified to:
Meet one of your company's ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
