How to chose a compatible PhD supervisor

Every student-supervisor relationship is unique. The trick is to work out from the beginning whether this particular relationship will work for you before you launch yourself into a epic 4 year PhD program.

At the beginning, your supervisor takes a prominent role as your teacher and advisor. Perhaps they wrote your scholarship application for you and gave you some introductory papers to read. They may have introduced to the lab, given you some basic protocols to try out, or at the very least directed you on to a fellow lab member who could guide you through every process and procedure.

As the weeks and months pass however, the supervisor role may take more of a back-footed approach. They'll still meet with you to discuss your results and provide suggestions, however you have taken a lower priority on their busy schedules as you should now be able to look after yourself. After all, that's what a PhD is all about.

This is not exactly how events have unrolled for me so far. On the very first day of my PhD, I missed the first introductory meeting with my supervisors due to an email communication error (apparently email can be 'broken', I do not lie!) I've regret this misfortune ever since, as I've never had a regular lab meeting scheduled with any of my supervisors.

My primary supervisor is not the 'formal meeting' kind of guy. Instead, he prefers to stroll around the open-plan office where he may stop in passing to enquire about my results. My repeated attempts to instil a regular meeting time have failed, as my busy supervisors prefer me to organise formal meeting as required. As a fairly introverted person, I detest having to co-ordinate lab meetings with my 3 supervisors every time I need some advice. So far, I've gone for the avoidance approach, which involves ploughing on alone without any input  until I reach a critical level of neediness. I'm then feel deserving of my supervisors time, however the subsequent meeting teaches me how much time I could have saved if I'd just coordinated the meeting earlier.

Perhaps this is a conflict in personality, or communication style, between myself and my supervisors. Something has to give, and it's not them. I'm the only one who loses out from infrequent meetings, the result being that I'm learning (albeit not fast enough) to force myself to ask for help more often.

Last week, a student from our lab dropped out of her PhD. I'm aware of personal communication problems between her and her supervisor. Thankfully for her, she was also only about a year into her PhD, so there's been minimal time wasted for her. However, this makes me wonder, can I cope with my own supervisor interactions for the next 3-4 years?

What cues can you use to judge whether the particular supervisor of your choice will fit with your needs and wants, before you start your PhD? In summary, I think that this is mostly impossible, as first impressions are generally meaningless. What's more, it seems to me that a large percentage of PhD students inevitably end up hating their supervisors by the final years of their PhD anyway, regardless of how well-functioning their interactions were at the start.

But to prevent a catastrophically incompatible supervisor choice, try and talk to other members of the lab before you commit to the project:

1. How do they get on with the supervisor? Read between the lines if necessary.

2. How much help does the supervisor give? If he/she doesn't give practical laboratory guidance, is there someone else who will?

3. How often is the supervisor available for consultation? Do they have an 'open door' policy, or do you have to make a meeting time?

4. What is the supervisor's personality? Can you deal with someone who is direct and efficient, or unorganised? Are there any particular qualities that you really need in a supervisor?

5. Does the supervisor have any common expectations? eg. do they expect 7am-8pm work ethic, or do they support a good work/life balance?

I didn't think about these things too much when embarking on my PhD. I went for a general 'feeling' about my supervisors. Perhaps I'm now finding some personality clashes as I've described above. But I wouldn't yet say these are completely incompatible. When I stop and think about it, I realise that a PhD is a learning process, and if I learn to take a stance, be more confident, and ask for help more often, then surely that's a good thing.

Ask me again in another year ;)