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is week, 23rd – 27th April, marks Administrative Professionals’ Week 2018. A week recognising the work of secretaries, administrative assistants, receptionists, and all other administrative support professionals.
At Wallace Myers International, we consider admin staff to be the backbone of a business which is why we champion and support anyone starting or building their career in the area. Here are some of our top tips for building a career in Professional Administration:
At Wallace Myers International, our Business Support Recruitment Team assists Professional Administrators to build their careers and coaches them on how to get the roles they really want as their careers progress. In our experience, Professional Administrators are skilled multi-taskers, often tech-savvy team leaders and always proactive problem solvers.
The knowledge and experience of a business’ administration team are invaluable to the success of that business. Take the introduction of GDPR as an example – for many businesses the responsibility of ensuring they are compliant with the new data protection legislation is in the hands of the Operations or Office Manager. The responsibility of an important project like GDPR compliance is put in the trusted hands of the administration team because they have the important combination of company knowledge and technical skills as well as access to the right people and tools.
Whether you are at the very beginning of your career or have a few years under your belt, please take a moment every day to recognise the value you bring to your employer.
When building your career, it is beneficial to assess whether you have additional skills that are in demand or rare to come by. Do you speak a second or third language? Are you a whizz-kid with Microsoft Excel? Do you have a background in Financial Services or Funds? Your additional skills could be the icing on the cake for a potential employer and could rocket you ahead of other job applicants.
Whatever your additional skill is, ask yourself two questions before adding it to your CV (1) Is it relevant to employers? (2) Do I need to sharpen this skill?
If you are a bit rusty with your languages or out of practice with a particular software there are a number of affordable ways in which you can upskill. Putting some time aside to improve your skills could be a valuable investment for your career and salary options.
The role of the Professional Administrator varies greatly from company to company and team to team. Whereas one role might focus on diary management, report preparation and travel arrangements another might be responsible for event planning, customer service or even project support for tech projects.
Take a look at your career history to date - have you mainly worked roles that are in a particular sector such as retail or construction? Is there a sector or responsibility that you have particularly enjoyed or been good at?
If, for example, you have worked largely in universities and have enjoyed or are gifted in diary management and have superior organisational skills then make this your specialism on which to build a career. Put it at the forefront of every job application and narrow your search to suit your specialism – when you look at a job description you should be thinking ‘I want to do that’, not just ‘I could do that’.
To keep up to date with opportunities and trends see the Wallace Myers International's recruitment website:
