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Whenever I go on an interview, I set up a mock interview with a friend and we go over questions that might come up. Whether they are the exact questions doesn't matter. It is the time spent practicing for the interview that helps. You want to get over those initial jitters and not knowing what to say in the mock interview. Do this a few times and you will be more confident when you actually go for the interview.
Good advice when doing meetings by video. [link] My sister experienced this recently when she signed up for a multi-video meeting with other consultants. She didn't realize everyone would be able to see her so she ran out to get changed because she was in her housecoat. In the meantime, her husband didn't know she was online and casually walked by the computer in his underwear.
I like to set a rule for the messages I receive from my boss. I have a new boss so had to figure out how to do this again and thought I should just write it down for the benefit of anyone else who may need it or for myself for the next time. I want any emails sent from my boss to go into a special folder. I also want it to make a sound when the email arrives.
Someone contacted me a year or so ago very fed up with her admin position. She was wondering how she could make her job more interesting. She was also having relationship problems with her colleagues. I could feel her frustration. I found her email the other day so thought I would contact her just to see how she was faring and things have not gotten any better.
I am one of those rare birds who actually enjoys taking minutes. I avoided taking them for years. I wouldn't apply for a job if I saw that minute taking was a requirement and if an employer ever suggested it, I threatened I would quit. However, when I finally decided to try it, I found I really liked it. I enjoy the preparation leading up to the meeting, the actual taking of the minutes and the follow up afterwards.
I was speaking with a senior Executive at my office today and she said one of the most valuable things that she has learnt over the years was how to work with an assistant. I think when we are first in the workforce we are going to the office expecting our boss will tell us what to do and we will endeavour to do it according to our skill set. However, there comes a time as we gain experience, that we will want to show our bosses what we can do and how we can help them.
The way I work is to get things off my plate as soon as possible and move on to the next task. The problem is it is now filed in the back burner of my mind. It is still hovering in the background somewhere, but I've completed the work, done whatever I had to do with it and diarized whatever needed to be diarized and moved on until I need to know it again.
I finally launched my new website and am open for business. Well sort of. The website is awaiting a small final touch, but if you want to take a peek here is my URL address Boomerangvirtualassistants.com It's very exciting, even at this stage. Sometimes you just have to do it and quit trying to figure everything out. My esthetician, who opened her own shop about a year ago, said she is learning the business side as she goes.
Recently, my sister (a long-time assistant) retired. We were doing some work together and because she knew how busy I was at work, she immediately took over and started to do the small tasks she knew I didn't have time to do. I appreciated all over again how nice it can be to have an assistant, and not only just an assistant, but a very experienced one.
I have recently been doing some work online and it has opened up a whole new world for me. Of course others have been on the bandwagon for some time and are doing quite well. What do they know that I don't and why have I not moved on this before now? To be or not to be an entrepreneur? Striking out on your own can be frightening. Especially when you are used to the traditional workplace of going to an office, getting a steady paycheck, being on the company pension and benefit plan, etc.
It is always good to be prepared when meeting with your boss. The purpose of the meeting should be to ask questions, get direction, provide and/or receive information. I would suggest the following: If you have access to your boss's email Inbox, go through it as that will be a good place to start. As you go through the items, you will have questions about meetings he or she is attending, questions about events they may or not be attending, etc.
When I create a table in Word I like to see the gridlines (the faint lines that tell you there is a line there, but if you print the document you won't see any lines). I like this especially for minute taking as I use a minute template document created by using a table. I prefer creating it this way because I don't want to be fussing with formatting while in a meeting.
I am giving a minute-taking webinar on June 14 and invite you to join in. Along with the more traditional minute-taking role, I will be talking about 'live' minute taking. It can seem very intimidating when all eyes are on you as you type, but there is a way to make even this less stressful. I will also talk about those times when your boss calls you into a meeting at the last minute to take notes and you weren't expecting it.
An easy way to remember when to use who or whom: If you can replace the word with “he” or “she,” use who. If you can replace it with “him” or “her,” use whom.
I attended an event today on minute taking. Our organization set it up for Admin Professionals' Week. Unfortunately, my first impression of the speaker was not very good because she was dressed down and looked rather frumpy. I don't believe in judging a book by its cover, but I was amazed at how easily my mind went there and how I equated how she looked to what she had to say.
It is important to read other people's minutes. Especially from meetings that your boss may have something to do with. It can be beneficial for a number of reasons: It will give you a broader idea of what your boss is involved in and will help you assist him or her better; It will help you understand the business better, which will help you in taking your own minutes; It can give you pointers are how to minute better by looking at how they worded a sentence or handled a discussion.
It is very useful to use an annotated agenda. For those who have never used one, it is simply an agenda with notes on it. For the agenda that I send to the meeting participants, I annotate it to let them know why an item is on the agenda or if there are any attachments. In my example below you will see that I put brackets around the notes and italicize them.
I have always had trouble knowing when to use the words 'then' or 'than'. Sometimes it is easy to figure out, but other times I struggle to figure it out. Well, today I came across a sentence where the person used 'then' and I was pretty sure it should have been 'than', but wasn't positive. Rhymes like '30 days have September', 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' (but there are exceptions), or what a school teacher I worked with taught me about when to use 'I' or 'me' in a sentence (if you can chang
After a wonderful experience at the AdminPro Conference in Orlando, Florida on June 14-17, 2016, I feel invigorated and ready to go. We can learn so much from each other and learn with did. Especially at the roundtable event where participants had 25 minutes to sit at the various speaker tables and ask questions. The questions asked really helped me to focus my webinar on the areas that were most needed.
Do you want to get better at what you do? Share it!! You wouldn't believe how much I learn each time I give a minute-taking or travel webinar. Because I am giving the webinar I have to review the material and make sure I know my stuff. The audience will certainly know it if I don't. The same can apply in your workplace. If there is sharing of information among the admins, then we can learn from each other and we all grow.
Being an Executive Assistant is more than just a title. When you get to this level it is expected you will take on leadership responsibilities. I am in an Administrative Assistant role again and am really enjoying it, but having just finished my career as an Executive Assistant, I am appreciating the work that they do, but am glad to leave it for someone else.
In preparation for the AdminPro Forum on June 15-17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida, here is an article with some Question and Answers about Minute taking. For more information on AdminPro Forum 2016, please click on the website and if you are able to join us, please register at this link. I hope to see you there!
When learning something new it is usually the little things that can seem overwhelming. I just learnt a new program to search patient names for information and medical records. I recall the person telling us how to use the program and it seemed complicated. Log in, enter your password, press F1 if you want to do this, F2 if you want to do that. When you get to this screen, look on the right hand side and press F11.
This summer I will be presenting at the AdminPro Forum 2016 in Florida and am really looking forward to it. Keynote speakers include Joan Burge, Lucy Brazier, Julie Perrine and Laura Stack. I have enjoyed the teachings of most of these ladies over the years and am thrilled to be participating with them and look forward to learning from them too. Recently on Facebook on the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) page they had a question on what would be the ideal gift fr
It's funny how as I have moved through my career from office to office the way I organize myself has changed. When I was at the law firm, I used tasks extensively and had a wait bin where I put things I was waiting on. I had a lot of trigger dates I needed to remember such as when to file a statement of defence after receiving a statement of claim, or putting in a reminder when the mandatory mediation kicked in.
During the holidays it is important to have people in the office to keep things going. I like working during this time because you can get so much done that you normally don't have time to do. Here are some of the things I will be doing: Cleaning out my desk drawers - I just started this job a little over a month ago. The girl who was there before me was there for 9 years and before they hired me there were two temporary people sitting at my desk so you can imagine the desk drawers were very dis
Dolly Parton's Nine to Five no longer applies to me. I've become an early bird. For those who know me that will seem almost impossible, but I've done it. At least during the work week and it's proving to be very interesting. I was always a 9 to 5 person, but would typically arrive a few minutes late. I always felt guilty about it and would sometimes get looks from the other girls or they would make a joke about me being late again, but I was a late night person and always worked well past 5, but
Starting a new job is more than just changing where you work. You have to learn a whole new way of doing things, from how to log onto the computer to filling out a purchase order form. There is a new work culture to adapt to and a new language of acronyms to try and sort out. Even though they can seem like small things, at the beginning you are trying to do your best to impress and can feel a bit helpless when the phone rings and you realize you don't know how to answer it.
'Travel Planning for Administrative Professionals Hi everyone, I will be presenting a new webinar on travel planning. Please join me on Jan. 3 from 1 to 2:15 p.m. For more information and to register, please click on the following link : Or if the link does not work, please cut and paste this link and put it in your browser: [link] I am excited to do this new webinar so I can share everything I''ve learnt over the years about arranging travel.
'I share the CEO''s Outlook calendar with my assistant. Since we both book meetings for him, it is important if we have proposed dates for a meeting that we secure them in his calendar so one of us doesn''t use it for another meeting. We do this by putting a hold on the date and time with a brief note with what the meeting is about, for example ''HOLD Strategy mtg w/DCEO''.
'I found this great site with basic filing rules for names. I found it very useful so I thought I''d share: [link] I''ve also added it to my sidebar under Filing for your future reference.
'I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. My next Minute-taking webinar is on August 30. I hope you can join me. The more you can learn about it, the less scary it will be.
'Minute taking can seem scary at first but once you know what you need to record, you will get better at it over time. My next minute-taking webinar will be on May 31 at 1 p.m. EST and I will go over the basics of minute taking as well as the actual process so you will feel more confident in this role. This webinar is well suited for those who have never taken minutes but want to learn, beginners or those at an intermediate level.
I replied to this question on a Linked In forum so thought it was worth repeating here. If I was an employer, I would want to ask this question of any admin who was applying at my organization. Since it is almost second nature to most admins to be organized it is sometimes difficult to answer, but it is just for this reason that it needs to be asked.
If anyone missed my February minute-taking webinar, there is another one coming up on March 8th. If you are interested, please register here. In this session I want to provide tips and ideas on what to do before, during and after the meeting. I find there are three important things you need in order to take good minutes: You need to learn how to take the minutes and have a clear idea on what you need to record; You should have guidelines and checklists to ensure quality and so you won’t forget a
Please join me on February 7, 2013 at 1 p.m. EST for another minute-taking webinar. I enjoy giving these webinars and wish I could have had something like this when I first started. I have tried to put everything that I would have liked to know into the webinar. As many of you have found out, there is more to taking minutes than just taking the minutes.
I have mentioned it a few times that when my desk is cluttered then I feel cluttered. I like to put everything in its place so I will find it easily. Is it any wonder if my Outlook is messy and cluttered that I feel the same way? I was at a recent IAAP Chapter meeting and we were discussing best practices for organizing our Inboxes and there were a lot of good ideas.
Please join me for my next minute-taking webinar on November 13 at 1 p.m. EST. My goal for the webinar is to make minute taking as simple as possible. To do that you need to be prepared, informed and confident. If you have the first two, I guarantee you will feel more confident in your role as minute taker. I hope you can make it.
I once worked with someone who had body language that you could read like a book. Stern looks, sad demeanor, very angry looking at times, sighing, interrupting while you were talking, especially when they were not in agreement, by harrumphing, sighing and rolling the eyes. It was disconcerting, but they didn't appear to be aware they were doing it. When I pointed it out, they said, "I can't help the way I look".
It is time again for another minute-taking webinar. My goal for these webinars is to make minute-taking not seem so scarey by breaking down the steps you should take before, during and after the meeting. To take good minutes you need to be prepared and informed. I find if you have these twos things, along with the necessary skills of an admin, you will be much more confident to take on this role.
I have been involved in conducting a few interviews for admin jobs and here are two of the main things I have noticed about those who are unsuccessful: resumes are out of date and not relevant to the job applied for and the person was not prepared for the interview. When you go for an interview you have to keep in mind that they really do want to hire someone, but you have to make it worth their while to hire you.
The admin role is a service-oriented position. Basically we are there to serve management - whether that be one executive or multiple managers and staff members. Managing our time can become more challenging when serving more than one person. Not that the volume is greater, because as someone who serves the CEO of our organization, I know that is not the case, but because it is coming from multiple sources it can seem overwhelming.
I haven't been posting in awhile as I have been considering retiring the blog. I will continue to write a few articles now and then, but have been spending more time on finalizing another book, giving webinars on minute taking and I would like to expand into other speaking opportunities where I feel my expertise can be used. I will leave my blog up and running as there are over 400 articles that I want available to anyone who needs them, so please search the blog and I am sure you will find some
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