Online Executive and Admin Assistant Training

What We Can’t Teach You - Blog Series Intro

July 23, 2009 at 03:37 PM | (3) Comments

Here at ProAssisting, we’re all about supporting and training executive assistants, administrative assistants and personal assistants. That’s what all four parts of our training and support program were designed to do.

And in terms of the work and office interactions our members encounter as assistants, through our membership forum, our goal is to point them in the right direction and lay out their options based on our 20+ years of experience.

From how to fix the copier machine to how to ask for that raise, answer that interview question or resolve a dispute with a peer, we know we’ve got the experience to cover their back and tell it like it is straight up at the same time. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have put our hard work, our names, a significant time commitment and our money on the line with this venture of ours.

But here’s the funny thing… The most important parts of succeeding at your job or in a lifelong career, whether that is being an assistant or in another position, we can’t teach you!

And the dirty little secret is… no one can.

There are traits, characteristics and attributes that you need to make a conscious choice about in your own head in terms of what they mean to you should you want to be successful in the working world.

I can hear you asking now…

“But do some people get by on their wit, looks, charm and without taking these traits into account or even caring about them?”

Sure. But that’s not us and this blog series isn’t for them so if you do get by on your wit, charms and looks alone, you can stop reading right now and be on your merry little way.

Through this blog series, we’re going to describe these universal attributes so you can give yourself an honest assessment of where you stand on each. Only once you assess your grade can you make changes to improve and thrive.

Even though these posts will be written from the viewpoint of the working assistant, they also will resonate with anyone who has succeeded in the past or has a desire to succeed in the future.

The first one up is “your work ethic & taking pride in your work”. We’ll be posting that next week so sign up for our RSS feed right now so you don’t miss it. Photo credit: Anyaka

All Posts, Organization, Stress Management, Tricks of the Trade,

Find Efficiencies in Everything

July 09, 2009 at 03:59 PM | (5) Comments

Finding efficiencies is the name of the game in many different fields of work but especially important when working as an assistant. In today’s “high speed” and “always on” working culture, being able to complete your tasks in as few steps as possible clears the way for you to do more work while being less stressful.

To help put this in perspective, let’s take a look at the definition of efficiency:

ef-fi-cien-cy [i-fish-uhn-see]
-noun, plural -cies.
the state or quality of being efficient; competency in performance. 2. accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort: The assembly line increased industry’s efficiency.

The words that stick out to me in that definition are “ability to accomplish a job with minimum expenditure of time and effort”. As you can see in the picture we chose for this blog post, that can be as simple as having all of the right programs open and ready for use on your computer desktop throughout the day.

Other examples include using an online system to make reservations instead of calling and being put on hold OR going to the register in the back of the drug store at the pharmacy counter when there is a line up front OR only walking to the other side of the office to drop stuff off after you have multiple things TO drop off.

My first job was working as a waitress and during my stint serving drinks and food, another more experienced server gave me some great advice: Take as few steps as possible to complete the maximum number of requests from your customers. That advice still holds true for me today as I assist the CEO of a multi-billion dollar hedge fund; he might not be able to put his finger on exactly what he appreciates about my multi-tasking, namely my efficiency, but he appreciates it nonetheless and your boss will too.

All Posts, Tales from the Trenches,

Happy 4th of July!... belatedly…

July 06, 2009 at 03:55 PM | (0) Comments

Howdy! Even though the 4th of July has come and gone, we still wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4th. I mean, it’s the day to commemorate the birth of our country, right? And given all of the changes that have been going on behind the scenes here at ProAssisting, the last couple of weeks have felt like a “birth” for us as well.

I’m not going to go into all of the gory details but suffice it to say that we’ve been workin’ our butts off (in all fairness, mostly our genius programmers MenWithPens were doing all of the heavy lifting) to transfer our site from one content management system to another that will present a much better experience to our members! And this, I’m pleased to say, is my first post on this new platform but please note that it’s going to take a wee bit of time to conquer the learning curve with this new system so if you notice anything “off”, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Lastly, I wanted to let you all know that we’re in the process of putting together our “beta members” for a two week test run before we open our doors to the public. We are very pleased that the “beta members” are being gathered by our friends over at AdminSecret. I’m sure this group of working Executive and Administration assistants will put our training and support forum to the test so we’re sure to be ready to go when our doors open. We’ll keep you posted on our progress and we hope you enjoyed your 4th of July holiday with friends and family. Photo credit: B. Yarowitz

All Posts, Technology, Tricks of the Trade,

Ever want the low down on your airline seat?

June 23, 2009 at 02:28 PM | (1) Comments

The trick for working with demanding bosses is to be able to answer all of their questions before they even ask them. On top of that, if you can know their preferences ahead of time, whether in terms of meeting requirements or travel preferences, you’re that much further ahead in the game.

Now, let’s paint a little picture for you: Your boss is traveling to Wichita, Kansas and is flying on a Boeing 767-300ER and you want to make sure that he or she has everything they need in terms of their seat according to their preferences but your boss has never flown in a Boeing 767-300ER nor to Wichita for that matter. So how would you go about finding information specific to their seat?

We suggest using SeatGuru.com.

At SeatGuru.com you can put in the exact plane that your boss is flying in along with what seat they currently have and you will get a chart, like the one shown at the upper right corner of this post, that details the seat and specifically rates it.

That way, when your boss is fretting about having a power outlet at their seat for their laptop, you can tell them that they do have one and show them the chart of where their seat is and that rating of that seat.

Another great way to use this site is while you’re on the phone with the travel agent trying to secure a seat for your boss. This way, you can check out the seats that the agent throws at you to pick the best (or least worst) one for your boss.