One of the most essential modern skills of course is your computer abilities. Knowledge of Power Point to set up a presentation is frequently needed. Keyboarding, and quickly, is vital. Now, even in this profession it goes ‘two ways’. There are secretarial individuals who tend to need to type more and to be effective have to be able to crank out over 60 words per minute without errors, but 80+ is viewed as preferable. The other sort, don’t do as much typing so the slow fingered people can sometimes function within this field when they have a lot else to offer. Word processing, spreadsheets and presentation programs are the most widely used in the field.
Another area is the telephone. The number of phone lines varies from job to job, but you can plan on handling incoming phone queries on more than one line. So, you will learn to receive and deliver messages. You can expect to use multiple methods for this: voice mails, hand written notes, and forwarding to the offices of your boss or bosses. At first it can seem uninteresting but when busy it can then seem rather overwhelming. So, learning to handle the phones, to direct calls and to learn which matters that you can handle yourself is a significant part of the job. Every office has it’s own protocols, but you will learn what to say when a stranger calls. You will quickly find out how to sort out all incoming falls neatly into categories and move them on to the proper people.
Most organizations have what are referred to as products or services. If you didn’t already know, and if you are an ‘off the street’ entry level employee then there is a good chance that you don’t know a lot about the company. By off the street I just mean that you wandered in for a job, looking for money with all the pre-planning of a man or woman suffering from a hangover who staggers towards a bathroom. You needed a job, and you found your way to one, so that’s good. Now that you are there, the company needs you to learn enough about it so that you can answer the questions of the people’s incoming calls etc.. If you can stand to or would even enjoy it, then it really is best for you learn as much about the company’s product or service as you can. You should also find out how it runs, who has been with it forever, how big it is: all that.
Try not to feel guilty, but this is a very emotional aspect of work. When you are going into a corporation that you want with a career in mind, or at least a long term job, then you are more apt to be inspired to do all this ‘finding out about it’. When you are compelled to take a job and begrudgingly agree to trade your labor with these strangers at this place where they told you that they’ll pay if you let them control you, then you may need to warm up to the company or to develop on-the-job curiosity rather than pretending to be genuinely interested in the beginning when you couldn’t care less.
