As an Executive Assistant (EA), you’re in one of the most commonly misunderstood roles in the corporate world. Plenty of people have heard of the EA role but they don’t know what you really do day-to-day. This can make it easy for your colleagues, and even your boss, to underestimate the breadth and complexity of what you do, meaning you don’t always get the recognition you deserve.
According to a recent Global Assistant survey, 70% of EAs feel undervalued and overlooked by their peers and colleagues. After speaking with many administrative professionals (APs) and through our own work aiming to make your lives easier through meeting and travel planning, we want to explore this challenge and offer some personalized support.
Here are five ways to effectively and easily showcase your EA skills and build value in your role, across teams, and in your company.
It is a useful practice to keep a record of your accomplishments and wins. Whether that’s saving a glowing email from a client or executive, noting when your quick thinking avoids a disaster, or generally keeping a record of things that you’re proud of. If you’re consistent with keeping these records updated, you should end up with a list of achievements that can help showcase your value, prove the complexities of individual tasks, and use as support for promotions and pay rises. Unsure of where to start? Use this accomplishment tracker from ASAP.
Remember to include the details when making notes of these accomplishments rather than just the shiny end result. For example, organizing an in-person meeting for a dispersed workforce can be overlooked as an “easy” task. Still, it’s only when you factor in all the individual components that people see how much skill it takes — and how much trouble they’d be in without you! A great way to do this is to show and track metrics, and even can be a useful meeting planning KPI to build. You can do this by knowing the answers to the below questions:
Statistics are a fool-proof way to prove your worth. Be sure to track your KPIs, your meeting ROI, and to highlight your contributions and use this data to support your career advancement.
To do this well, however, you need to overcome the fear or embarrassment of self-PR. Being an EA especially, often the only way to show your value is to make it known, so don’t be afraid to make some noise when you do something impressive.
We know you don’t need any more work on your plate, but taking some responsibility for your career advancement can be a great way to climb the ladder and show initiative.
As you know, executives are notoriously busy, so driving conversations of their direct reports’ career progression can often fall lower on the list of to-dos. Not to mention, if you work in a dispersed workforce, it can be hard to build a relationship with your manager and understand all of their needs if you don’t see them day-to-day. By being proactive in initiating important conversations with your boss around expectations and direct feedback, you will pave your path to success.
Here are a few options on how you can take initiative in your career growth:
With these resources, you’ll have a clear path of what your manager expects from you today and what skills you need to move to the next level. You’ll also showcase how important your role and their opinion is to you. This continuous alignment can help you avoid scope creep as well. And just like that, with minimal time and effort from your manager, you are building trust and creating your trajectory for improvement, with a focus on tangible results that you can show to your boss at your next career catch-up.