Keeping up with your reading list
Staying on top of the administrative profession and your industry is a daunting task. Several tools can help with storing an article until later when you have spare time to read:
Category: Career
1-Minute Strategies: Jan. ’11
Pay attention to first impressions—the ones you’re making on others … Steel your resolve by clenching a muscle … Increase productivity by keeping one to-do list … Optimists find jobs more easily than their peers and are more likely to be promoted …
You can excel at anything
With at least 10,000 hours of practice doing something complex, you can be excellent at it, according to “Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything.”
Give your résumé a shot of Botox
Update your image by Botoxing your résumé, says Lisa Johnson Mandell, author of Career Comeback: Repackage Yourself to Get the Job You Want. Like the cosmetic procedure, Botoxing your résumé is a way to “lift, firm and freshen your look,” says Mandell.
Annual salary study reveals little change
Base pay for administrative professionals across the United States is expected to remain consistent with 2010 levels, according to the OfficeTeam Salary Guide 2011. The average increase in starting salaries for all positions is 1.1%, with slightly larger gains forecast in customer service and health care.
2 words to improve e-mail messages
The biggest problem with e-mail, according to Scot Herrick, is that most people only use the tool as a way to manage to-dos, collaborate and move work along. Herrick believes that’s a problem because we should be thinking of e-mail as a personal branding tool, not merely as a workhorse.
Regaling the unsung heroes of the office
Recently, executive assistant Angie Knode won the Adminologist of the Year award presented by Office Dynamics. And it wasn’t by accident. “One of the goals of our executive assistants’ team is to increase the recognition for our administrative staff,” says Knode’s co-worker Peggy Vasquez. “These are often the unsung heroes …”
4 ways to get your next job
You have a job now, but times being as they are, you may one day find yourself without it. The time to prepare for—and hopefully prevent—that scenario is while you’re still employed. Here are four things to do now that will benefit you if you ever lose your job.
Use rejection to regroup
If you’re like most people, the last thing you want to hear after you’ve finally worked up your nerve to ask for what you want is a big, fat no. Rejection isn’t fun. But rejection is a great time to take stock.
Step-by-step guide for a healthier you
Americans take fewer steps than our cohorts in Australia, Japan and Switzerland, according to a new study. Those extra steps have everything to do with the extra weight we’re carrying. Test your physical activity by getting a pedometer. Keep track for two or three days, then use these “steps per day” numbers to figure out whether you’re active or simply busy: