PA

PERSONAL ASSISTANT (PA)

As a Personal Assistant you will provide secretarial support for a director or 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 boss and making decisions for them in their absence.

You will manage diaries, co-ordinate meetings, arrange travel, deal with enquiries, manage budgets and expenses, and undertake ad hoc projects. You will be emotionally intelligent, enthusiastic and well presented and polished with excellent organisation skills. You will be happy to be flexible on work hours and travel to meetings and events when needed. As a board level PA you will be under pressure and working to tight deadlines, involved in minute taking (possibly shorthand), 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 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.

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