PA / Secretarial

PA - Personal Assistant

As a personal assistant you will provide secretarial support for a senior manager and work closely with them, often dealing with confidential information that requires tact and discretion.

You are likely to find yourself standing in for your senior manager and making the decisions when they are away.

You will manage diaries, coordinate meetings, arrange travel, deal with enquiries, manage budgets and expenses, and undertake ad hoc projects. You will be emotionally intelligent, enthusiastic and polished, with excellent organisational skills. You will happy to be flexible on work hours and travel to meetings and events when needed. As a Board level PA you will be constantly under pressure working to tight deadlines, and involved in minute taking, collating Board papers and reports, and putting together PowerPoint presentations.

Those who succeed as a PA will develop excellent communication skills to be able to deal with people at all levels, will be able to carry out several tasks at once in a calm and professional manner, and are likely to be assertive and ambitious and used to taking the initiative.

Some personal assistants choose to remain in the role, and career progression comes through working with more senior executives or moving to larger companies. For others the next step is to cross over into a senior executive role of their own.

Executive Assistant

Top executives appreciate that they need support in order to be effective, and that their assistants are an indispensable part of their success. It’s support at its most involved level.

While you may well be asked to make the tea, you are just as likely to be taking part in executive discussions about the day to day operation of the business and future strategic thinking. It's a demanding role, and you need strength of character and resilience.

An Executive Assistant will have experience supporting at senior level within a professional environment. You will be expected to have complete responsibility for the smooth running of their day. You will be required to provide full organisational support and enjoy being fundamental to the running of the office. Excellent communication skills are essential as well as being organised and articulate.

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