In the beginning, a position such as this is normally quite humble. If you are not an ambitious person but enjoy being supportive and like to earn a living then this role might suit you rather well. However, if you do have ambitions then this is going to be, at times, rough as your pride won’t really help you if it is at all impetuous. You can develop an honest to goodness career in administration as an entry level assistant.
Now, in the really old days, this was a man’s job: the secretaries were men to. Then, in the new old days, this type of work became a women’s profession. Nowadays whether man or woman, this could work for you. There are a set of skills needed. You have to have basic organizational abilities. You must have a good attitude towards both customer types of people and to the people over you. The larger the business, the more people will be over you.
Often there are forms of filing: organizing the paperwork for the office. This is one of those special spots in this line of work since it is one of the greatest aspects of growth and change in the profession. As a beginner you may handle some invoices or do some filing and write up a couple of letters. However, if you stick with it, and transform over the years into a highly prized executive secretary or high level personal administrative assistant, then you might normally create presentations, control your boss’s scheduling book, set up numerous meetings that attend to outside issues such as new major customers or internal issues such as a Christmas Party for the staff of the business. Similarly instead of helping to prepare a presentation for the boss using Power Point, the Executive Sec. might be debriefed on what will be covered and it will take only a nod for her (or him) to create the entire thing and schedule when and how it will be delivered.
In later lessons we will cover more of the basic skills that you need. Some are implied here. However, what I most wanted to show is something that I didn’t even notice until years after I had discontinued working this type of job: how it can progress into real careers for those who want it to. Having gone into it with my career sights elsewhere I hadn’t even notice what I could have done within the profession.
At the entry level you can work in a wide range of atmospheres. Also, many of the basic skills that you develop you apply in all subsections of the profession. The fact is however, that you will get further along if you grow along a basic direction, say medical and health or law, or industrial or academic or political.
Finally, you may also be pleased to know that you can arrange yourself to work for either women or men or a firm that has both. Often, at the peak of this profession you will often work for only one particular individual. Whether you serve a veterinarian, a lawyer, a CEO or a Dean or University President or nation’s President will depend a great deal on the path you follow. The good news is that if you are very capable, and are at ease being someone’s proverbial right arm rather than the head or feet of a company, then you might like this field quite a lot.
