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Hi Friends, any news for ITA (C2) promotion?
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Can anyone here give a referral?
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Volunteer to help put with projects and learn more about what kinds of things they need. I started doing some basic data entry, then suggested ways certain things could be more effective. For the execs I have email access to, I can see if they have a report or something they need to work on, I proactively gather data that they might need, sometimes analyze it for them if I know it would be meaningful or helpful. It's always led to more strategic requests.
I was just talking about this in an interview that I had today.You can’t change how people perceive you. The best advice I can give is that if there’s a position that you’re interested in. You need to shadow someone in that position with the approval from your manager. I would shadow a variety of departments. If you see that there is a glass ceiling or no room for growth… please listen to this. Learn everything you can in your position, Expense reports, power point, etc, have a great rapport for those that you can use as a future reference and move on. I stayed at one too many companies as an admin where there was no growth and to pretty much wasted a lot time. Move up to executive admin if you can and move to a company that pays more and promotes growth.
Thank you, yes I am looking at executive support as a next step and applying externally. After 3 years in my role with no immediate step up I do feel I have to at least move to a different dept if not a different company.
I deliver! Above and beyond. I know the value I bring. I am so effing smart and I know it and I bring it to bear in the smallest tasks. Sooner or later, they start trusting me with moreand allowing me make judgement calls. It's never failed me. It probably helps that I have a JD and I have very varied experience across diff industries.
As a manager to admin staff now I find a lot of admin have trouble looking at a process and trying to find ways to make things better or more efficient. A lot like to just follow the steps they’re given and that’s it.
I started as a receptionist and was always interested in helping others, asking questions and volunteering to help and spent a lot of time making manuals that were easy to follow and understand. Now getting to manage a team of 40 admins I’m still learning but heavily on the admin support side.
There are so many opportunities, it does take a lot of work but I’ve found it extremely rewarding.
I am definitely not a work robot so that’s great to hear. I am always looking to make processes more efficient, volunteering for projects outside of my JD. Now if I could only get management to stop PRINTING everything and using paper forms…
The company I'm in now looks poorly on their admins. I couldn't understand why for quite some time. Then, I stepped out of bounds and found out. I support 5 directors at a tech company. There is busy work but compared to my last job, this is a walk in the park. Someone on one of the teams I support was really struggling to get a PowerPoint together. I noticed this in a team meeting where the director kind of pressed her. I messaged her after and asked her what was holding her up. She had a lot of research to complete but had almost no idea how to work PPT. So, I told her to work with me on her vision, I would the PPT together, and she could just plug in the research. No big deal, right? No. The EA for my group would've tore me up limb from limb if she could have. "As admins here at (our company name), we do not assist with any PowerPoint, Excel, Word documents, etc. We stick to balancing calendars, expense reports, and travel." Yeah, ok. Now, I do everything under the admin radar, but people talk. I'm putting together 2 huge data Excel workbooks with search and lookup functions that no one else knew how to do. I always offer to cover time off for those above my pay grade. Recently, our raise portion of the year came up. I have 4 quarters of reviews that say I "exceed expections." Even though it shows that, my yearly was marked as "meets expectations." So, my raise was a joke. I was hurt and I asked my boss about it and he said that raises like that are "unheard of" at our company. I've been there 2 years, and this is the first raise I've received, and this is not what was discussed during negotiations. I told him right then that I would be looking at higher pay grades. I reached out to our HR person to find out how to maneuver the inner hiring workings. She let me know that since I showed up, she's been receiving great emails about what I do and what I can do. One thing of note is I covered an EA's 8-week sabbatical. She supported two vice presidents. For 8 weeks, I supported 5 directors and 2 VPs. Both VPs and their staff were very happy with my work and told my HR rep that they felt like I was only supporting the one. They forgot I had 6 other teams to care for. So, as we have been discussing my career path, it has been discussed that I look into the operations roles. Now, will anything come of this? Idk. I trust literally no one. Especially in the corporate world. One thing I'm working on keeping up with is AI. AI and how it can be useful in the assistant role. Get ahead of the curve on AI programs, ChatGPT, Bard, and all that, and you will be the one people are going to. Always be building and refining your skills. Keep up with the updates in the Office Suite. There's always a lot, but generally, you can cherry-pick the most useful ones.
Would love to have someone like you on our team! Great initiative and definitely agree operations is where you need to be by the sounds of your strengths. Innovative and thinks out of the box. Make sure you’re with a company that encourages growth and continues to give you opportunities to keep learning!
Always. Being an admin has its challenges. I always speak up (which isn’t always the best) but I really show my dedication to my job performance. I go above and beyond for my team and sometimes it bites me in the butt but the people that sit in the back don’t normally get the attention they deserve. Be observant with your surroundings. What coworkers/managers have your back and are willing to help you achieve your goals?? Those are the people you need to learn from and to grow relationships with because those are the people that will treat you with respect and help you move up the ladder.
Oh how I understand your frustration. The need to do and accomplish more is a desired trait that many overlook. You can be the golden child but growth becomes stagnant due to lack of exposure. I had this conversation with my sister the other day. It’s like being trapped in the AA role because that is all people see when so much more can be offered. I have a Masters in Healthcare Administration and clearly thought it would be a clear path with no obstacles. I was wrong. Although I do work for a healthcare organization, it’s hard to advance when nursing is the over shadower or your resume doesn’t check all the boxes, yet you know you can do the job if given the chance. Take some courses that you are interested in, obtain certificates and push as hard as you can to get to where you want to be. Network and be visible. One day your dream job will make its way to your front door. Just don’t give up!