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Discover needs

The hiring manager​

Bioinformatics teams are spun up with a variety of scopes and purposes. The easiest way to figure out the scope and purpose of your team is by asking the hiring manager.

Some questions to ask:

  • What led you to hire for my role? What led you to choose me?
  • Looking forward three months, what would lead you to believe that I was a trajectory-altering hire? What about a year from now?
  • What is your biggest problem right now? Is there a way you think I can help with that problem?
  • What milestones are you trying to reach in which I play a role?

Other stakeholders​

We'll call anyone affected by your work "stakeholders". They often have different needs than your hiring manager, and they often have needs that are unknown to the manager.

The easiest way to discover stakeholder needs is to simply ask! The same questions you asked your hiring manager work here, too – especially if the stakeholder was involved in the decision to hire you.

Some tips:

  • As you talk to stakeholders, keep extensive shared notes to help identify and communicate their needs.
  • Try phrasing needs as falsifiable outcomes rather than ambiguous goals. For example, "an RNA-Seq analysis pipeline that returns data within a day" is better than "faster pipeline results".
  • Note anything that you can do to help them meet their needs, even if it's tangential to your original role.

As you're talking to relevant stakeholders, continue regular meetings and communication with your hiring manager. Use those meetings to ask for additional context and perspective on what you've heard from other stakeholders.