With H/R at an investment firm. She said it was going well until H/R pretty much started giving scenarios about why the last admin "moved on". Said it pretty much sounded like H/R was blaming the admin for things that went wrong and they were looking to fill the spot immediately. They even gave her a start date. Within hours, my friend/fellow admin had an interview scheduled the next day. She immediately took these as red flags from bad mouthing the admin to a desperate hire and told them no thanks. She isn't on a real hunt for a job, but she's still looking. I, too would have passed on it. I thought I would share that.
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I’ve seen this happen, I was the EA for one of the 2 execs at a company. I got to train all of the poor souls picked up as the EA for the other exec. I really felt like it was me, I kept trying so hard, how do I set these people up for success.
The other exec finally gave up hiring after bullying the last girl into quitting and decided they could share me as an EA. I had been EA at this company for 4 years, but only lasted a few months before I grew a backbone and stood up for myself. I’m now an operations director making 30% more money with a huge network of peers to help when the job gets tough.
Can you please tell me how you made the switch or any advice for somebody trying to make the switch from EA operations? I feel like I have all of the necessary skills and want to start applying for roles in operations
To be honest, it felt like luck and a little bit of who you know. I initially made the move to an administrative assistant within the company. The operations director before me wasn’t very effective so I was able to step in and help with things outside of my standard job function. He resigned as he was not right for the role but enough people had noticed the extra work I did and asked if I was interested. I did have to interview against other candidates but they offered me the position.
Feels a little like right place at the right time. There are so many EA skills though that are transferable into operations. The book is kind of silly but The Phoenix Project is a good book about learning the importance of operations.
Thank you for the answer! I’ll check out the book too! Honestly hearing right place / right time stories is inspiring to me because that’s how most of my professional life has worked out. Sometimes when I try to visualize a clear path it seems impossible so this has reinvigorated my hope for something like this to potentially transpire for me. I think another lesson here is that you were willing to go above and beyond when you saw an opening and that got noticed!