We have always imagined the life of an upper-level executive of any department or an organization as full of fame, respect, money, and so on but there’s nothing wrong! Yes, that’s the way how it looks like but here’s a twist.
Also imagine having loads of work, duties, responsibilities, decisions what and whatnot. That’s how it feels like when you are an executive at a large MNC, corporate, or any government office. No doubt you are respected, you are adored but at the same time, you have to deal with various responsibilities on your shoulder.
Here’s where the assistants come into the picture, these are those heroes who light the weight of responsibilities an executive holds.
Executive assistants are those who manage the day-to-day tasks or some important but not too much than other kinds of works for eg: scheduling meetings, noting down minutes, presenting reports and data, and so on.
As we have understood clearly about an executive assistant, let’s now proceed towards the other criteria like job description, duties, skills, salary, etc.
Job Description Of An Executive Assistant
The main task of an executive assistant is to provide the proper assistance to the upper-level executive of an organization. As not so direct but eventually you are increasing the efficiency of your firm altogether.
For instance, an executive assistant can be in charge of maintaining records of some databases, analyzing data, scheduling meetings, and so on.
All his/her aim must be to take over all the outsourceable tasks to yourself and executive it accurately.
Duties Of An Executive Assistant
As we mentioned earlier an executive assistant is to make the work of an upper level at ease. His/her duties are all those works which are essential and can be assigned to someone loyalist.
- To act as the mediator between the executives and internal or external colleagues
- Scheduling meetings and conference and engaging conference rooms
- To maintain ongoing filings and database system, and looking for ways to update current software and hardware
- To make peregrination arrangements and book tickets for outstation appointments
- To note down the minutes of the meetings and posting them accordingly
- To manage the calendar and day schedule of an executive
Skills Needed For An Executive Assistant
A strong personality is essential for an assistant, with that personality required skills, are what make up a valuable assistant.
So let’s have a look at what are those special required skills to be an assistant.
- Communication Skills
Not only for an assistant but for or in every field of work this very particular skill is important, it’s universal. An assistant is a person who connects with almost every other person who is in contact with an executive.
The people who are in connection with the executives are those who are in business and to be served very wisely. Being an assistant you must have proper commutation skills so you can connect with them as smoothly as the executives do. Eventually, everything can be built by words.
- Trustworthiness
Executives consider assistants as their right hand or same authority with different bodies, all the responsibilities assistants hold are part of an executive’s duties.
Hence being honest eternally is what every executive looks for. Assistant holds all those inside or internal data of the company that’s the reason why trustworthiness is very very important in this field.
- Time Management
Executives appoint an assistant so they can focus on their very important work as they are too busy to do all the work. As an assistant, you must have the skill of proper time management as everything is expected to do in time because more tasks are pending behind the recent.
- Multitasking
Assistants have several tasks to execute at the same time, sometimes giving the whole time to a single task isn’t a good option hence multitasking is also important for an assistant to perform.
- Attention To Details
While working on lots of tasks at a single time may be hectic, but the assistant has to make it in a sleek manner, just working on several tasks is not what is appreciated but working on several tasks with perfection surely is.
Education Needed To Be An Executive Assistant
From an educational point of view, having a high school or undergraduate degree is preferable to being an assistant. Some add-on courses would be cherry on the cake for eg: Basic computer, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, etc. If one has any degree from business-related that will be more preferable.
Salary For An Executive Assistant
Executive assistants on average earn a median annual salary of ₹1,20,000 which is not bad for freshers or for those you are looking forward to in this field as a career. Salary differs as per the experience and other aspects but as you spend more years in this field you earn more salary and also commission, incentives apart from it.
Conclusion
India is a developing country where the innovations take place every day and also gets adoptee very quickly, so being the part of such a developing country the corporates and business are also growing exponentially that results in lots of executives taking over many responsibilities eventually the demand for assistants who can take half their responsibility on their shoulder, hence it is safe to say that the exposure for career is at a good level.
Hence if you are looking forward to this field as a career then it can be your appropriate decision, but make sure you be trustful and devoted to your work in this field.
Finally, this is all you need to know about executive assistants. I hope you like this article and if you do then make sure to like and also to share with those who want to be one. If in case we have missed anything or you have to add up something, let us know by commenting down below and also flash your thoughts, as always they are appreciated.
Reference
- https://www.comm-unityplus.org.au/images/documents/position_descriptions/2018-05-09_PD_Executive_Assistant.pdf
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-137-44424-0_3
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Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
I am a full-time professional blogger, a digital marketer, and a trainer. I love anything related to the Web, and I try to learn new technologies every day.
All the team management, content creation, and monetization tasks are handled by me. Together with the team at PrepMyCareer, the aim is to provide useful and engaging content to our readers.