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Dress for Success
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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, Tricks of the Trade,

The Assistant’s Toolkit - ProAssisting’s free assistant training program
May 03, 2010 at 04:48 PM | (1) Comments

ProAssisting is proud to announce the launch of our free assistant training series:

The Assistant’s Toolkit

This 10-part weekly email series delivers some of the best tips, techniques, templates and strategies that are part of our paid assistant training program.

These weekly lessons can be used immediately to increase your productivity and streamline your office procedures.

Wanna impress your boss with your newfound skills? Go ahead and follow the instructions below to sign up today!

To sign up and get your first free lesson now, follow these simple steps:

1. Put your name and email in the form below and hit the ‘submit’ button.

2. Confirm your subscription by clicking the confirmation link sent to your inbox—we hate spam just as much as you do and this assures each of us that you DO want to join the Toolkit—.

3. Put all of the lessons you learn to good use and shine as an assistant.

What are you waiting for? Join today:

All Posts, Stress Management,

8 Reasons Why You Should Work for a Tough Boss
April 28, 2010 at 03:00 PM | (5) Comments

swimming with sharksWhen we say work for a tough boss, we’re not necessarily saying someone like the Kevin Spacey character in “Swimming with Sharks” or the Meryl Streep character in “The Devil Wears Prada”—although if you can tough it out with someone like that, go for it—no, what we’re talking about are just normal, run-of-the-mill, tough people to work for, with and please.

This may sound counter-intuitive to you but working for a tough & demanding boss does a number of things that will HELP YOU when starting out on your career path.

1. Working for a tough boss teaches you to be at the top of your own game. If you’re not, don’t worry, they’ll surely let you know. By consistently working at a high level for a demanding boss, you’ll be stretching and able to perform at that level for longer and longer periods of time. Instead of being yelled at for a mistake every two days, it will turn into every two months or even less.

2. Inside the company, everyone who knows this “tough” boss knows that they are hard to work for… so if you CAN work for them and keep them happy, your stock within the company rises and opens up other opportunities for you down the road.

3. This demanding boss also gives you an “out” when asking for assistance in terms of performing your job. You get to blame the rush or circumstances of your requests to the IT department, the mail room or operations on your boss, thus getting what you (and by extension he or she) needs in the quickest time possible.

4. A tough boss also has a reputation within their industry outside of the company and that too can help you when interviewing at a competitor. Either the competitor knows that you “know the drill” given your current or previous tough boss OR they might want to poach you from your boss as “payback”... it does happen.

5. When a tough boss gives you positive feedback on a job well done, it’s like gold and you’ll feel like a million bucks.

6. You will develop a thick skin and be able to take criticism better than people who haven’t worked for a tough or demanding boss. The maturity and poise that you gain through these traits will shine through when compared to your peers.

7. The tough and demanding bosses are usually the ones who are extremely smart and know their business inside and out. If they didn’t, the company would have gotten rid of them a while ago because they are tough and demanding without the performance to back it up. Once you become trusted, these bosses can turn into mentors who will teach you what they know which then opens up career options for you down the road.

8. Lastly, if you can thrive when working for a tough and demanding boss, when it does come time to either move on or be promoted, usually that tough boss turns out to be your biggest supporter.

On the flip side, don’t be fooled by just a regular nasty person with no talent trying to disguise themselves as a tough, demanding and smart boss… these are the folks that you want to stay away from. You’ll be able to spot a boss like this if they change the rules constantly, don’t give honest feedback/advice and aren’t respected by their peers from inside or outside the company and industry. Advice: proceed with caution.

Lastly, in Hollywood, all bets are off.

All Posts, Technology, Tricks of the Trade,

Raise your hand if you like automated phone message systems…
March 18, 2010 at 12:37 PM | (1) Comments

angry callerI don’t know about you but whether I’m making calls for my boss or myself, I try as much as possible to bypass those pesky recorded messages that prompt you to input all sorts of information before it lets you speak with an actual living and breathing human being.

I know that they ask for this information—account numbers, PINS, last 4 digits of your social security number—so that the representative has your account or profile pulled up when they take your call but based on my experience 98% of the time, I have to repeat that information to them anyway… just ridiculous.

Anyway, here is a treat for you—one which we just added to our membership resource center but you can get here for free—to help avoid those recorded messages asking for information before passing you off to a real human being: GetHuman.com!

GetHuman.com is a website that lists thousands of companies along with their various customer service numbers WITH instructions on how to avoid those automated messages and get to a real human! Very easy to search and the instructions are easy to follow… and you can also rate your experience using that number or add your own with instructions if you have any that aren’t listed.

Just another use of technology to bypass a level of technology that drives me batty. Enjoy!

Flickr Creative Commons image by jcardinal18

All Posts, Organization,

The plan for a successful project
March 09, 2010 at 03:10 PM | (0) Comments

plan for successAs an assistant, you’re going to be tasked with completing both large and small projects. Whether tackling this year’s holiday cards, planning a multi-leg trip for 3 executives or just ordering lunch for the board meeting, each project can be thought of using the below “outline” to achieve maximum success.

Granted, you’re not going to have to follow this plan by writing out each action or idea for each step every time—especially for the lunch ordering—, however just thinking of both large and small projects from within the below frame work, you’ll greatly improve your chances for success while not missing any important step or overlooking a specific detail.

Take a look:

Outline for a successful project

1. Define success - it’s important to know what you and your boss view as a success for each project you’re assigned.

2. Brainstorm - you need to think of anything and everything needed to reach your definition of success. Don’t worry about being neat or making sure everything is in order, you just need to make sure that your brain is opened up for everything needed for success.

3. Organize actions and steps based on priority and time line - For larger projects, create a work-flow document that lists these actions/steps in order along with level of priority. This is especially helpful when working with a number of different people on the project.

4. Do the work and delegate specific tasks to the proper people/departments - as an assistant you’ll need to do a majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to completing your projects however don’t lose sight of the fact that at most companies, you have other departments and resources at your disposal to help for specific tasks.

5. Frequently check completed work against your time line & priority work flow document - these “check-ins” need to be used to make sure you’re on track to complete the project on time.

6. Once complete, reflect on the outcome of the project - What worked? What didn’t? What could have been done differently for future projects? These questions are very useful for streamlining processes and making sure your next project goes even smoother than the one before.

Next time you have a project, either large or small, think about these steps to ensure complete success. If you have any ideas for steps we might have missed or tactics that you use that help you with your projects, let us know in the comments.

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