Information Interview: Kettle Side Supervisor At Shearer's Snacks

Information Interview Report The information interview was a useful experience, providing an opportunity to interview a professional and gain some insight. For this interview report, I interviewed Mike McVilain, Kettle Side Supervisor at Shearer’s Snacks. In this report we will be covering the preparation done for the interview, what was asked, the interviewee’s replies, and what was learned. For now, however let us go back to Mike McVilain. Mike McVilain is a veteran of the factory industry and longtime supervisor at the Perham, Minnesota plant. He has seen the factory and company go through numerous phases, from when it was a far smaller factory owned by Barrel’O’Fun, to later expansions, and then being sold to the current owner Shearers

Mike is my supervisor at Shearers Snacks making accessibility easy. While a machine was down, I found him and expressed my interest in interviewing him. He agreed to an interview and we set up a time that would work best. Because we are both night shift workers, scheduling a time outside of our normal working hours is difficult. As such, we agreed to conduct the interview during our shifts at the factory. This had an additional benefit as Mike could explain his work and reply to questions hands on in the factory. When preparing the interview questions, I centered them around two primary subjects, cost accounting and managerial work. Mentioning earlier of my interest in the internal auditor field, I wanted to ask some questions related to that. Also, because Mike is a supervisor, I believed this would be an excellent opportunity to ask about the life of a supervisor. This was particularly interesting to me because a supervisor position is a common stepping stone for most career fields. Learning more about life for a supervisor would help me decide if it were an appealing option to

I started by asking him about what exactly he does, from there we transitioned to talking about the life of a supervisor and working with people. Communicating with others such as subordinates, clients, and higher ups takes up a considerable portion of a supervisor’s time. Far more than I had expected coming into the interview. For a supervisor or at least in this scenario, they must conduct an immense amount of professional communication. This of course necessitates having effective communication skills and the desire to communicate as well. These skills are constantly put to the test as well as a supervisor must interact and work with new people often. During the interview, I asked how exactly he begins interaction with new people. Mike’s reply was that he will conversate to his normal personality, but in a professional manner, on topic with work. The answer was simple but was very helpful to me as I occasionally struggle knowing how to act in these situations. While informative, the now knowing of how much communication a supervisor must conduct is concerning to me. For myself, I often find conducting person to person communication and interaction to be fatiguing after a while. A supervisor position may require more human interaction than I would wish to bear. This will be something for me to keep in mind as a progress my career, a major personal take