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  • Take advantage of our 20+ years of assisting experience
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  • Access a library of tools, templates & resources assistants use daily
  • Use our training to shine from day one
  • Get promoted in the shortest time possible
Learn more about the program or
Dress for Success
Our 1-for-1 partnership with Dress for Success®:
For every person who enrolls in our training, we donate a full year scholarship to a Dress for Success client. It's an easy way to help someone in need during these difficult economic times! Learn More Here.
Interpersonal Skills

Communication only becomes more critical as your career advances. Fine-tune those communications skills for phenomenal performance.
Organization

Ever hear of a fantastic disorganized assistant? Neither have we. Get the tools and tactics you need to stay organized and on the ball in your assisting duties.
Stress Management

Keeping a cool head in a crisis is one of the most oft-neglected essential skills of an assistant. Learn how to keep stress at bay so you can rise above.
Technology

There are innumerable programs, websites, and online tools to help make your job easier. We’ll review and recommend the best ones for assistants.
Tricks of the Trade

Take the shortcut to gaining years of experience by getting our Cliffs notes version of what we’ve learned from our 20 years in assistant positions.
All Posts,

ProAssisting & Dress for Success form 1-for-1 Partnership!
November 23, 2009 at 01:14 PM | (0) Comments

Dress for Success logo

+

ProAssisting logo

= 1-for-1 Partnership

To kick off this Thanksgiving week, we’re truly honored to announce our 1-for-1 partnership with Dress for Success!

Click here to learn more about this amazing partnership!

All Posts, Interpersonal Skills,

Are your work communications professional?... Are you sure?
November 16, 2009 at 06:38 PM | (1) Comments

slang hurts in businessCame across an article from the site Careerealism recently that was a great story about the difference between being professional and “not so” professional in your communications at work and how that can affect your reputation, responsibilities and yeah, even your promotion.

I see this all the time at the advertising agency when either as an intern or new hire just out of college, no matter if you’re out on the town for a couple drinks with your college crew versus communicating with a client/partner/sr. executive at work, there is no difference in the quality and tone of their communication. Speaking, emailing or writing a new business deck, the communication doesn’t take on the formal tone that work communication deserves.

Some of this is because these young guns want to get their ideas out of their heads as quickly as possible so they don’t forget them and the other part is just not realizing that there is a more formal mode of communication when working with co-workers, superiors and especially clients and customers. I don’t blame our “wired in” generation for this; they’ve grown up with Twitter, Facebook and IM status updates where slang and short communication rule.

The rule of thumb for work though is to be as formal as possible until the person your communicating with sets the tone of the relationship. And even then, I personally still communicate more formally since when I’m working, I’m working and then when I’m playing, I’m playing. Separating the two makes all the difference for me.

But the best trick of all for avoiding this communication pothole is two fold: Set automatic spell checking to all of your emails AND re-read every email and document you send out for tone before hitting that send button. Agree, disagree?... comment below please.

Flickr Creative Commons image by ruminatrix

All Posts, Tales from the Trenches,

Anna Wintour’s daughter is NOT afraid of assisting!
November 04, 2009 at 05:24 PM | (0) Comments

Bree Shaffer and Anna WintourI know I said two weeks back that I wasn’t going to blog about assisting but rather about what we (Ethan, Sadie and I) are doing behind the scenes of ProAssisting however after coming across this story through my fashionista reading, I had to post about it!

Bree Shaffer, daughter of Anna Wintour (one of the hardest people to work for as an assistant—see Devil Wears Prada—), has decided to get her foot in the door in the entertainment industry not by riding in on her Mum’s coat tails—as most of us would given the opportunity—... No, she has decided to start at the bottom by working as an assistant for College Humor co-founder, Rick Van Veen!

Needless to say, I’m very impressed that Bree is taking such a step. Lord knows that she has seen first hand what assistants can be put through so putting that aside and jumping in with both feet gets my full respect. A source in the report is quoted as saying that Bree is “not afraid to do grunt work,” which will serve her well as an assistant and is advice that we give to all of our enrollees through our training.

Grunt work done well equals respect which will eventually equal a promotion… the trick is to stick it out and form a working relationship with your boss that demonstrates your commitment to them, their job and the company.

Good luck Bree, we’re pullin’ for ya!... and if you need any assistant training to learn the ropes and shine from day one, we’ve got your back.

All Posts, Organization, Stress Management,

How do YOU handle being slammed at work?
November 03, 2009 at 05:58 PM | (0) Comments

paperworkYep, that’s right… I’m slammed with work… Work at my “day job” I might add.

We got big news as an ad agency recently: We’re merging with another shop.

Our North American agency of under 1000 employees is merging with a world wide agency with over 8000 employees. Usually when a smaller shop merges with a larger shop, the large shop takes over and cleans house but with this merger, it’s the other way around. Our management team and a majority of our employees are staying put while the North American arm of the larger agency is being folded into us.

And that’s a really good thing with one negative, short-term consequence.

First, it’s great because my boss got promoted and is really running the show now on the account management and operations side of the business. Love my boss, we’ve got an amazing working relationship and so my position is secure… and until ProAssisting (which she knows about and supports) takes over and allows me to devote all of my time to it, having a “day job” for a boss I love working for is a great thing.

BUT… there is a ton more work on my plate as a result. Dealing with spreadsheets and organization charts and trying to get all of their information to match with ours is a big—and very confidential—task… one that falls to me to make these documents as coherent as possible for my boss… thus, I’m slammed at work.

How do you deal with being slammed at work? For me, I batch my tasks and try to take things one step at a time. Also, if something simple pops up that would take me 3 minutes to complete, I do it, get it out of the way and then return my focus to the larger tasks. I usually find that at the beginning of such large tasks, the work seems overwhelming but as I get into it and start knockin’ bits and pieces of it out, it never seems as bad as I thought it would be. As a last resort, sometimes I come into the office real early, stay late or come in on the weekend to have some time with no distractions to get caught up and get back on my game.

How about you?... How do you deal with being slammed at work?

Flickr Creative Commons image by gregoryjameswalsh

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