• You love the boss
• The commute is dynamite
• You hire and fire your own clients
• You set your work hours
• The dress code is the coolest!
• The costs of doing business are truly minimal

The downside? You are really, truly on your own. This brings some challenges:

• You have to learn to market yourself .
  • There are a couple of posts to get your started on a website here and here.
  • You’ll need to buy business cards and hand them out everywhere. Vistaprint offers the best deal. That link takes you to a big discount, and if you buy them through my links and I make my minimum to get a kickback, I’ll send you a kickback! (See? This is me, marketing) Just send me your info on the contact form.
  • You’ll need to network like mad. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter are all big helpers, but you need to get out and meet people. Tell them what you do. Ask what they do and tell them how you can help.
• The loneliness factor: you need to be able to work alone or have a place to work among people. Your networking can serve that purpose.
• Did I say you’re on your own? You’re on you own. Buy your own health insurance. Make sure you can handle a fluctuating cash flow. Figure out how to handle I.T. And don’t think you can call Employee Relations when the boss gets snippy.

If all that works for you, go for it! You may even want to join the team at The Tribe of Admins.

The short answer is yes, you must.

Your boss may just be discovering social media – and you may be, too. You must get ahead of that curve! An old-school admin will soon find herself in a new-fangled unemployment line – online.

What happens when your manager wants you to maintain the website and tweet regularly? Are you ready? You may be in the position of advisor. If that happens, you need to figure out whether or not Twitter is an appropriate means for your business to promote itself. Tweeting about caulking every five minutes isn’t going to win your company love or dollars.

If you think Twitter is all there is to it, you need to put down the quill pen and start start surfing. You might check out JK Virtual Office Blog. She’s a VA who has specialized in social media and she has some useful insights to share. Another one is the My Twitter VA blog. She’s taken a certification in social media marketing. We might not all want to become marketers, but if you don’t know the basics and it doesn’t come easily to you, find a course, online or otherwise.

And what about that website? The theory is that “all” you have to do is post the updates. The words “all” and “website” should never be used in the same sentence. You’ll need to learn more about it, and what you need to learn depends on what kind of website your company has. Something that definitely falls in the “can’t hurt” category is learning a little HTML. I know….it sounds like “ewwwww…programming,” but it’s really more like pig Latin. Once you get the gist, you can navigate reasonably without being fluent. I found this free online tutorial at W3 Schools fun and illuminating.

Leave the “I don’t need to know that” mentality to those who can afford it – admins need to adaptive learners. That’s the long answer.

Assume that this is not the case; you’re an entry-level Administrative Assistant and you want to become an Executive Assistant. What makes the difference?

The most obvious thing is that Executive Assistants work for…yep: executives. EAs are commonly dedicated to one or two execs heart and soul, as opposed to working for an entire team. It’s hardly a hard and fast rule, however– you may be the assistant to an executive and still support the team, but your official role will be to assist the heck out of that executive.

The next hierarchal difference arises from what level of executive you support. It’s very important to recruiters for senior executives to see that you’ve had some experience at that level. You’ll sometimes see EAs who support C level executives differentiate themselves on their resumes as “Senior Executive Assistants.” Often, it’s a silly distinction. You’ve supported an executive; you know how to support an executive. The big BUT is there are some senior level execs who really know how to use an assistant and will give you with a much broader scope of responsibilities and commensurate compensation. So how to get there?

In my opinion, there are three crucial requirements for an assistant to higher level executives:

Business acumen  What the heck does that mean? You’re business-like, right? You understand basic business principles. Well, it’s a little more than that. You need to understand your business at the detail level. Try to get your manager to include you in meetings with her direct reports. Read everything that crosses your desk. Ask questions. Read trade journals. Ask more questions. Figure out how the parts of the company work together and who the players are. Understand the company goals and your manager’s strategy for meeting those goals. Have something to contribute to that process. 

Political acumen This is crucial when a new manager comes onboard. If you work in a big company, you may find yourself with a new manager fairly often, and even if not, new hires need your help. You need to know who is crucial to your manager’s best interests, who to turn to get things done, and the best approach for dealing with Important People like your boss’ boss’ EA.

Proactive behavior The first word on all of our resumes is “proactive,” because we know that’s going to be the first question out of the interviewer’s mouth, but are we really? When you see a meeting come in, do you just accept or decline it, or do you look for materials that might apply to it? If there are none, do you check in with the organizer to see if there any forthcoming? Do you stop there? If you’re aware of what’s going on in your company (see ‘business acumen’) and who the players are (see ‘political acumen’), you’ll check to see if the right people in your department are invited, if there’s anything on the agenda that’s jumping the gun on your manager’s schemes…anything you can think of to ensure no surprises. You check what’s coming in to your exec for completeness – because you know what complete looks like. See the pattern? Eyes and ears wide open. Protect the exec.

How to find the perfect boss for all these wonderful skills you’ve developed is another challenge for another day. I’m off to work on becoming that paragon I just described…