How do I write an email to my boss to request for more work?

Question

Background

I am recently working as a software engineer intern at a startup company. My company helps clients achieve their financial goals. The job is quite remote and mostly I am working with my direct supervisor via emails, who is responsible for sending me any tasks that he needs my help (my supervisor is not the CEO of the company, and the CEO is not familiarized with IT and works directly with clients I suppose).

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Problem

The tasks I've got from my supervisor is very little so far. Usually, I get one task weekly and depends on the difficulty of the task I may finish in 1~3 days and then it takes me about 5 days to receive any feedback from my supervisor. I am not sure if my current work is such "comfy" because the company is small and there are not too many clients and tasks recently. Another possibility I thought of is my supervisor doesn't value me much becasue I am just an intern at the moment. But I think it would be dangerous if my CEO doesn't know what I have done to the company and is not good if I am gonna ask for a full time offer later this year. I am thinking about writing an email to the CEO and shows that I am able and willing to do more tasks, however, I am not sure how I should phrase in my email. Can anyone offer any help?

Answer 1

I am thinking about writing an email to the CEO and shows that I am able and willing to do more tasks, however, I am not sure how I should phrase in my email. Can anyone offer any help?

First off (and as said elsewhere), always talk to your supervisor about things such as this unless there's a particular, and good reason you cannot involve him - going around him will likely not put you in the best light.

As for how to phrase the email, just phrase it as a question when you complete your next assignment rather than a big issue, and preferably, if you can, say what you're doing at the moment to productively fill in time:

Hi Agnes,

I've completed my assignment for this week, as always let me know if you have any questions. As a general note, is there anything in particular that you'd like me to be doing in the gaps between completing the assignments and receiving the next assignment the following week? I'm more than happy to continue [researching x relevant technology, following online tutorials to get to grips with x new relevant framework], but also more than happy to divert my attention elsewhere if that would be preferable.

Thanks!

If you can (honestly) write something like this, it shows that you're at least acting instinctively and spending your time learning relevant stuff rather than just browsing the internet for cat videos, and it gives your manager every opportunity to say if she thinks you should be doing something else.

Answer 2

Do not jump around your supervisor as an intern. This will put you in a bad light to the supervisor as well as the CEO and could jeopardize your ability to get a full time job. I would recommend you do the following:

1. Write a detailed email to your supervisor indicating your current assessment of your work and the potential you feel you have for additional project opportunities. Stress (professionally) that you feel that you and the company are not getting the full potential benefit that having you as an intern could be and you wish to increase this benefit by doing additional work. Ask if there are any other tasks available for you to do, even if it's not helping the company out directly, but you wish to learn and grow in your internship as much as possible.
2. After you get a response from that one and put a little distance while implementing any additional project work and/or personal growth work, send another email to the supervisor indicating your great interest in a follow up job at the company and your desire to converse with the CEO directly about a future opportunity at the company once your internship is completed.

This will ensure you are pushing your supervisor for additional work and show a written audit trail of your continued work enthusiasm as well as your ability to deliver on your promises. It will also show your willing submission to those in a supervisory position above you while also showing that you have ambition to climb above your original starting position as well as the dedication to providing additional benefit to the company.

Answer 3

Start using Jira or another similar issue tracker so that your supervisor can see what tasks you have assigned and which one(s) you're working on. You should ideally usually have enough assignments in your issue tracking software such that you aren't going to ever run out of things to do, but not so many that you feel overwhelmed.

Answer 4

Nicholas, you are a remote worker and an intern. How that came about, I can't say. But you're not going to be placed on the critical path for any serious work if the situation stays as-is, because there's no real opportunity for you to showcase your work or your work habits. If you disappeared today, your post seems to indicate that they wouldn't miss your efforts at all.

I'd suggest that you figure out a way to get yourself included in as many Skype meetings as possible, to help the effort of associating your name and face as someone who's ready, willing, and able to get work done. The payoff for your boss has to be higher than the burden of communicating everything to you either by e-mail or by needing to schedule phone calls; otherwise, you're going to continue to be sidelined.

If you can arrange it, show up in the office once a week. I think it'd help.