Hello there! Today’s post shares a workbook I created to help people who want to become an EA but have no prior office professional experience.
It took me many months to land my current EA role. I had the experience, but lacked compelling interview stories and impactful data. My resume was in need of an update and my mentor gave me some great feedback.
Before you start, check out my post What It Takes to Become an EA and come back to this post if you’re still interested in the role.
If you’re already an EA, you may find the workbook useful to evaluate your current role and determine how your skills map to the next level or to other EA roles you’re interested in.
A disclaimer: there is no guarantee you’ll land an EA role by completing the workbook exercises. This is a competitive role and you’ll be competing against highly qualified applicants with years of experience as an EA. Don’t let this stop you. Just be prepared and keep trying.
Update: 2025/01/12: I’ve remixed the original email videos into one video. The new video has chapters, so you can watch each lesson then come back to it for the next one.
I’ve created this 7-day challenge workbook to help you. Take as much time as you need to do the exercises. Each lesson builds on the previous one.
This workbook can be printed or used with a pdf annotation app. It was created specifically for EA Mentor readers and is for personal use only.
Here are the sections of the workbook:
Identify your transferrable skills
In this lesson, you’ll make a comprehensive list of your current skills. Next, you’ll look at job postings for an Executive Assistant. You’ll select 3 that match some of your skills and create a skills map that compares your skills to the required/preferred skills in your 3 listings.
Complete a SWOT analysis
In this lesson, you’ll use a SWOT analysis, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The first three are pretty obvious.
Think of Threats as your obstacles. How much do you need to learn? How much will it cost to improve the skills you’ve identified as Weaknesses? Is Gen AI really a threat? If so, what do you think you need to overcome it?
Take stock and take action
This lesson is a bit of a break. Time to stop and reflect on what you’ve learned in the first two lessons before you move on.
Boost your strengths, overcome weaknesses
In this lesson, you examine both your strengths and weaknesses and determine what you can do to level up your strengths and kick your weaknesses to the curb.
Use a Priority Matrix to rank your opportunities
In this less, you’ll learn how to use a Priority Matrix to stack rank your opportunities to determine what you need to urgently work on before you apply for an EA role.
Create SMART goals to plan your strategy
Once you’ve completed the Priority Matrix, in this lesson, you set SMART goals to keep your progress going. There is also a bonus To Do list page.
Review your progress and celebrate!
The final lesson is another reflection: what you learned, determine next steps and why. And to celebrate. You did it.
Once you completed the workbook, you have a better idea if the EA role is right for you. Whether or not you pursue an EA role, you now have more information about your skill set and career goals.
Leave a Reply