Persuading my Supervisor
This semester I will be finishing up a Human Resources internship that I have enjoyed very much. I do not want to leave my work there behind when the semester ends, so I thought that it would be ideal to continue working there for pay over the summer. In order for this to happen, however, I would have to see if my supervisor would be willing to hire me once my internship comes to an end.
What happened?
First things first, I let my supervisor know that I have really enjoyed the work I have done during the internship. She responded saying that I have been a great help to her, and that she would be disappointed to see me leave. I thought that this would be a perfect moment to suggest my willingness to continue working for the summer, so I casually mentioned that I would be happy to continue working there after my internship ends. My supervisor responded that she does not usually hire interns, but that I had been so helpful to her that she would consider hiring me if I could give her an overview of what responsibilities I would take on as a paid Human Resources employee.
In this moment I realized that I was being presented with a communication challenge that was relatively new to me. My supervisor was naturally going to be hesitant to hire me for the summer because she is not accustomed to hiring interns. Therefore, in order to achieve my goal i would have to be somewhat persuasive. Persuasive communication was something I really wanted to practice and develop, so this was a perfect opportunity to do just that.
What did I do next?
In order to persuade my supervisor to hire me for the summer I would have to do two things. First, I would have to continue to produce good results and work hard at my internship, and second I would have to present my supervisor with the responsibilities I plan to take on should I be hired for the summer. The first would be rather simple, but the second would require more thought and attention.
I decided to both tell my supervisor orally what I planned to do as a paid employee for the summer, and to give her a written list of the same thing. This way, I could try to communicate persuasively through my voice, and she would still a permanent written record of what I said so that she could reference it later.
What was the Result?
Success! I was so happy to find out that my supervisor decided to hire me for the summer. She said that she was impressed with my ideas for what to do over the summer, and that she would be very happy to have my help.
I think that I was successful in this situation because when I was communicating with my supervisor in an attempt to persuade her, I made use of a you-emphasis technique. I knew that I would be more successful if I focused on how hiring me for the summer would benefit her and the company as a whole than if I focused on how it would benefit me.
I noticed that when i was communicating my proposition to my supervisor I had very little nervous reactions. For me this is a huge step forward in my journey to developing stronger oral communication skills.
What’s Next?
Even though this is my final primary research related post on this blog relating to developing my oral communication skills, that does not mean that my goal is complete. Over the course of writing this blog and practicing my oral communication skills I have successfully communicated in a group where I was forced to become a leader, successfully ran a formal business meeting, and successfully persuaded my boss to take a certain action.
I am definitely proud of the accomplishments I have made towards my goal of improving my oral communication skills, but there is still a lot of room to improve. I plan on continuing to work on these skills for a very long time in an effort to make myself stand out in academic and workplace settings.
