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  • My Mentoring Results

    Hello office pros. In today’s post, I’m sharing my results, thoughts, and philosophy of mentoring peers. It’s an article I’ve had on the back burner for a while, and is a bit more personal.

    Being data-driven, I regularly update my resume and review my various trackers. The recent review was prompted by my application for Permanent Residence in Canada, which requires a current resume.

    My career in a nutshell

    In case you’re new here, I’m a career office professional with experience as a project manager and cost analyst in cancer research studies. I joined Amazon as an L4 EA in January 2020. In April 2022, I was promoted to L5 EA and received feedback to share knowledge with my peers. I received my first mentee in 2022 and joined the Amazon EA in Training Program as a Mentor. In 2023, I launched the EA Mentor and my coaching business. In 2024, I closed my mentoring business after moving to Canada on a closed work permit.

    My mentees & results

    I’ve mentored eight EAs since 2022; all were L4 EAs (entry level Executive Assistant) when we started working together.

    What follows is my assessment of my mentees using the World Administrators Alliance Global Skills Matrix, provided courtesy of Executive Support Magazine.

    Of these eight, five were officially mentored for 6 months – 3 years, with a regular cadence of meetings. Two operated at Level 2 (transactional); one EA left Amazon and the other is languishing at their current level. Two operate at Level 3 (transactions + strategic) with one being promoted to L5 EA in 2024. The fifth EA operated at Level 4 (strategic) and left Amazon to become the EA Business Partner to the CFO at a multinational software company.

    The others were mentored on an ad hoc basis, and all operated at Level 2 (transactional). One left Amazon, and the others languish at their current level.

    I currently mentor two EAs who operate at Level 3: my L5 EA is thriving in her current org and level. Promotion to L6 is not out of reach but she needs to decide if that’s her path. The other EA has been at Amazon for 6 months and needs another 6 months in the role before her manager can submit a promo doc. Both L5 and L6 EA roles are within her reach.

    My thoughts

    After reviewing my data and having a good think about all the EAs I’ve worked with, I’ve found high-performing EAs share the following traits:

    • Approachable
    • Asks questions
    • Takes notes
    • Takes ownership
    • Critical thinking skills
    • Sees the Big Picture
    • Detail oriented
    • Very organized
    • Identifies issues AND brings potential solutions

    My mentoring philosophy

    My role is to:

    • help my mentee reach their career goals
    • provide training and guidance
    • act as a sounding board for ideas
    • brainstorm solutions
    • be objective
    • serve as a feedback provider for their promo doc
    • to learn as much from them

    I set the expectation that our conversations are confidential. Our sessions are conversational, with questions arising from the discussion. I try to understand their org, projects, team dynamics, etc., so I can provide effective annual and promo doc feedback.

    When my Lead EA assigned my first mentee, I was excited and nervous. It was up to me to assess this EA and provide feedback to my Lead. Years later, I understand the purpose of this assignment.

    At first glance, I felt I’d failed. In fact, I did my best. They were not able or willing to live up to expectations and quit abruptly.

    My learnings

    I’ve been an office pro since the dawn of desktop computers. I don’t pretend to know everything because, well, I don’t. I enjoy learning new subjects, skills, and ways to solve problems.

    I don’t intend to be a global EA influencer, speak at admin conferences, or write articles beyond this blog. I know my strengths, and I’m at my best working one-on-one. I can and do speak in front of groups. I tend to be a bit silly – not that you can tell from these posts, thanks to years of technical writing.

    What I learn from my mentees:

    • solutions I would not have come up with on my own
    • a new tool or mechanism
    • ideas for team events
    • looking at this career with fresh eyes

    When I had the idea for this article, I thought my success rate would be around 20%. Doing the math, I find 37.5% of my mentees are successful. While I play a role in their success, it’s up to them to take responsibility for their career.

    My younger sister and I love classical literature. Since January 2024, we’ve been reading Norton’s Anthology of World Literature Volume A. We meet online every week and discuss what we learned, liked and didn’t like about the reading. Clearly, this is how I operate best, so why fight it?

    Data aside, I like everyone I’ve mentored and consider them friends, no matter how our mentoring relationship turned out. We’ve spent a lot of time together. They’re good people.

    The Executive Assistant career isn’t easy, but it can be rewarding for both mentor and mentee. If you don’t have a mentor, I highly recommend finding one. If you’re more experienced, share your knowledge and help out a peer. There’s always more to learn if you’re willing to try.

  • EA Interviewing Tips

    In today’s post, I share stories of EA interview examples gone wrong and what to say instead using real interview answers that I’ve summarized. I’ll break down the answers, point out what went wrong and give an alternative answer for each.

    Yes, interviewing can be nerve-wracking but we’re EAs. We expect the unexpected by planning for various scenarios. Interviewing should be no different. You’re answering questions about your own career.

    The STAR method is a great way to craft your examples. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Actions, Results. What does Results mean for interviews? Provide enough data to back up the story and demonstrate impact. See my post on EA Interview Prop for more information and a Google Sheets template you can use for your own career accomplishments.

    EAs hold confidential information that can’t be shared; interviewers get that. Phase the story in a way that gives enough context with data and impact.

    Be prepared

    Don’t over-simplify, use catch phrases or fluff words. Support examples with data. Be prepared but don’t over-prepare, which sounds rehearsed. Keep your answers crisp.

    One candidate strictly followed the STAR format: “This was the situation…these are the tasks and actions I took…these were the results.” It was endearing that they took the instructions literally.

    In this example, the candidate was asked about tough feedback they received.

    “I was new to this team and asked to do tasks by certain timeframe sent via email from the leader to the EA team. I thought I understood the task, tried to get more detail from the leader and was scolded for the errors when the leader replied to all to this email.”

    What went wrong

    The interviewee threw the leader under the bus by telling me about the email scolding which came across as a tactic for eliciting sympathy or being manipulative, after stating they repeatedly nagged their executive for more information. They admitted to acting on incorrect assumptions.

    Why the leader wouldn’t give out more information does not matter. What matters is the candidate hit the first wall and proceeded anyway.

    The other EAs were not new. Some had likely done this task in the past. The interviewee could have gone to one of their peers and asked for help but didn’t. THIS was the take away from the experience.

    EAs need to work with minimal instructions but, in this case, they were new to the role. As the newbie, you get to ask all the questions. This is the time because in 6 or so months, your leader and peers will be irritated by your basic questions. If the person person doesn’t know, ask them who can help you. For the most part, your coworkers want to help you. Excluding, of course, the office bullies and narcissists. This will show you who you can trust and who you can’t. It will likely be a painful lesson. Better to find out early than get a surprise knife in the back later.

    What to say instead

    We all make mistakes, small or horrifically large. We’re human. Own your mistakes and learn from them.

    I completed 3 tasks by the deadline but found out 2 were wrong because I didn’t ask for more information. I realize now that I wasted 5 hours on the wrong tasks when I should have checked with the other EAs about the distribution of tasks and ask clarifying questions on what I was supposed to do.

    Be succinct

    Don’t ramble before getting to question at hand. Keep it short. Be specific. Anticipate follow-up questions and be prepared with details.

    The candidate was asked about working against tight deadlines.

    I agreed to take on a 2nd full-time role with no knowledge or prior experience; however, I jumped in, learned the role and managed expiring contracts, the RFP process, wrote company guidelines, provided regular updates to leadership, saved the company significant money, and successfully executing the new contracts on time.

    What went wrong

    The candidate took over 15 minutes to answer the question with no data or results. I asked follow-up questions for data and results and they were prepared with some data but fell back on fluff answers.

    In the moment, I was mildly impressed with the answers but something didn’t sit right with me. Reviewing my notes later and talking with the EA who shadowed me, I was put off by this candidate.

    The follow-up questions revealed several red flags. The candidate: threw their leader under the bus by saying he didn’t understand the program; they threw the previous person under the bus by saying the data were wrong; the candidate was supporting a half dozen other executives until they got assigned this second job. They disparaged one of the executives. In another question, they disparaged a peer.

    This example came across as bragging: no one else was capable of doing this 2nd job so it was up to the candidate to save the day. They did not indicate if they wrote a procedure manual or trained the next person. All of their answers were self-centered, even though they claimed to be a team player.

    Yes, the interview is about you, but we’re part of a larger team: our leaders, their directs, peers, everyone else at the company. When you’re in it for yourself or praise, this will show up in your answers.

    It’s possible that none of that was their intention, but their non-verbal communication contradicted their words. The candidate’s body language screamed: their awesome resume and these half-assed answers should sell me on hiring them for an entry level EA role.

    If I ignored the less flattering aspects of this interview, there was a risk this candidate would use this job as a foot in the door then transfer out at the first possible opportunity. This particular team needed a solid, entry level EA who could grow into the the next level.

    What to say instead

    Anything but what they said? Seriously, though:

    Option 1: The candidate expressed no further interest in pursuing the second job. Accepting the 2nd job showed poor judgment on their part. They had more than enough EA experience to come up with a story that demonstrated their skills and ability to push back. I would take the second job off the resume and never speak of it again.

    Option 2: Re-word the answer to a summary. Admit they didn’t have all the answers and omit the empty phrases. As part of the lessons learned: acknowledge they sacrificed their health and admit how many hours they actually worked on 2 full-time jobs.

    Be humble

    As EAs, calendaring, travel coordination and expense reporting are core to the role.

    The candidate was asked how they manage their leader’s calendar. If this had been a phone screen, the answer would be perfectly fine. Not earth-shattering, but they were competent: time blocks, color coding, etc.

    What went wrong

    The candidate’s body language, sarcastic tone, huffing sounds and eye rolling demonstrated they were irritated at having to answering a “basic” question.

    What do say instead

    Great question! I put a 2 hour, daily time blocks on my execs calendar. We use these blocks for reminders with links to documents that need reviewing or training to take. I use color coding so my exec can see at a glance which meetings are top priority and which are optional. My exec loves being able to know at a glance which meetings are important. He loves the work blocks; they keep him on track and he saves time by not having to dig through emails or folders to find what he’s looking for. Our work block system saves him 2 hours per week.

    Don’t be offensive

    Never make racist, ageist, culturally insensitive, gender, weight or other such remarks. You know very little about the person you’re speaking with or what they’ve been through.

    The candidate was asked to share a time they helped a struggling peer.

    They created a mentoring program to help up-skill the EA team. Most were onboard, but one was old fashioned and struggling with the technology.

    What went wrong

    The candidate made the assumption that I was their age. I’m not.

    In 2024, there are 6 generations in the workplace. Age has nothing to do with ability. I’ve met Boomer EAs who are advanced Office Suite users and EAs younger than me who can’t make a pivot table to save their life and actively avoid using Excel because of it.

    What to say instead

    Rather than complain about coworkers who less skilled than you are, explain how you coached the team on, let’s say Outlook. For example, you heard several peers complain about the hour they spend every week writing the same email over and over. After talking with a few other EAs, you identify 10 peers with a similar complaint.

    I created a lunch & learn to teach 10 EAs how to create and use Outlook Quick Parts. My training saved the group 10 hours per week, or 520 hours per year. A month later, I followed up with everyone to see how they were doing and learned each was so excited about what they learned and the time saved that each one created 4 more Quick Parts. In total, I saved 10 EAs 50 hours per week or 2,600 hours per year.

    For a sense of scale on the savings, the average work hours available per year is 2080 (assumes 2 weeks of vacation per person).

    I hope these examples help you with preparing your interview answers. Conduct an honest self-assessment of your skills. Check out my post on how to conduct a SWOT analysis to find and bridge your knowledge gaps.

  • EA Interview Prep

    Hello there! In this post, I provide tips on how to prepare for an EA interview using my numbers as an example of how to collect, analyze and summarize data. Data management is skill that will move you from tactical support to strategic business partner.

    We’ll focus on using data for interview preparation. If you’re not comfortable with spreadsheets and summarizing data, this is an easy, low-risk way to experiment with a spreadsheet and learn the basics of summarizing data so when your exec drops a data project in your lap, you’ll be somewhat prepared.

    Make your life easier by getting in the habit of regularly tracking your work. You can create your own tracker or download a copy the EA Tracker Logs Template I created in Google Sheets. This worksheet is designed specifically for EA Mentor subscribers and is for Personal Use Only.

    Collect data

    It’s tough to remember everything you worked on over the course of one year. Don’t rely on your memory; set up a system to periodically review your work. Six months from now, you’re unlikely to recall every detail. As a back-up keep all the contracts, invoices, receipts, key emails from the past year. Check your company’s document retention policy and take steps to ensure you keep your important documents until the end of the year.

    For example: time block quarterly career updates on your calendar and make a folder for the current year where you save executed contracts, invoices, receipts (after you’ve been reimbursed) and purchase orders.

    The maths involved are basic algebra. Set up a simple tracker and use pivot tables to summarize data. Simple means: little to no formatting, dates, numbers, type, costs, descriptions and notes. When a column is formatted for currency, for example, do not enter additional notes in this cell. You won’t be able to use formula or pivot tables to analyze data. Instead, enter a comment or add a column at the end to enter notes.

    If you plan to use a pivot table, do not leave skip a row or column. If you’re using formulae, you could skip a row, but then you’ll need to work on understanding how the spreadsheet app uses formulae. It may or may not work the same way you learned maths in school.

    A spreadsheet is not a word processor

    It is a tool to collect and analyze data. The more simply you enter data in your log, the more power you have to analyze the data. You’ll be able to combine formulae and pivot tables to great effect.

    Get creative in how you present the data: copy and paste your summary tables into your word processing app and joosh it up there. In Excel, you can use the formatting tools on the summary table.

    Solicit feedback

    At the end of every team off-site I coordinate, I set aside time at the end for the group to discuss and share what went well and what could be improved. The pros & cons were written on the meeting room dry erase board and recorded in my notes.

    For me, I collected feedback from the team, good and bad: food, venue, overall event, technology. Feedback is not who I am. It is a measure of how well I performed my job.

    One of my first team summits was at a recently renovated hotel. The hotel was open to hosting conferences for a couple weeks (this was in the early days of Covid lockdown). The hotel staff were unprepared to troubleshoot their new teleconference system effectively during my 3 day conference and we had a lot to get through. I couldn’t afford to fuck around with tech, so I improvised. The result was suboptimal but it kept the conference on time. I expected and received negative feedback. As a result, I put together an off-site tech kit with a Jabra speaker for the next time I had to host an event in a hotel.

    Analyze data

    To demonstrate how to analyze data, I’ll share my experience coordinating team off-sites as if I were preparing the data for an interview.

    My event experience from 2022-2023

    At this time, I supported 3 leaders with three business units. Each business unit held team off-sites 3 times per year, which included catering, team dinner and team event. I was typically given 3-4 weeks to pull together events. This was during lockdown, so it was relatively easy to coordinate meeting rooms and lodging. Catering was a bit more difficult, but I managed. I attended these events to provide onsite support, take notes, participate and meet the leadership team in person.

    Sample data and pivot table

    The EA Tracker Logs Template includes a sample Events tracker and sample pivot table. I’m more versed in Excel but I used that knowledge to create a very simple pivot table to summarize event data by organization with total in-person and virtual attendees.

    Play around with the pivot table or create one for your own data and play with it.

    Using my tracker template, you can filter or sort your event data to get summary data. As the data in your tracker grows, pivot tables will become your friend.

    Prep the story

    I use the STAR method to prepare my interview stories: Situation, Task, Action, Results. In the post, EA Interviewing Tips, I use real-world interview stories to demonstrate the STAR method.

    Using my own data from the past 5 years, I can demonstrate my ability to organize domestic and international events with globally dispersed team and negotiate contracts. Of course, I would tailor this story to suit the role I was applying for:

    In the past 5 years, I’ve organized 17 team off-sites. Three of these were virtual, 3 were in-person only and 11 had in-person and virtual attendees. These events had an average of 21 in-person attendees and 8 virtual attendees. The smallest team off-site had 11 attendees and the largest had 80. The off-sites were held in 6 cities across the US with 14 team dinners in the US and 1 catered lunch in Edinburgh.

    Benefits

    Coordinating 9 events in 2 years on top of all my other responsibilities was tiring. I was running on fumes. It was at this point that I created an event-specific tracker. My goal was to persuade my leaders to schedule their off-sites at the same time and location, so I could effectively and efficiently coordinate these events.

    Results

    I presented my event summary data to all three leaders. They were all sympathetic. One leader wasn’t interested and the other two said they’d think about it.

    By the time the other two agreed it was a good idea, I’d accepted the offer for the role I’m in. My efforts didn’t even help the next EA because these business units were split apart.

    The point of the exercise is to try and come prepared with data. Sometimes, the answer is no.

    Impact

    I sometimes feel my events with 40 people are small when compared to other EAs who coordinate very large events. However, while my off-sites seem small (to me), they impact a lot of people. These team off-sites are used to help the team track projects and goals, develop the plan to move forward in the short term and set goals for future projects.

    In the past 5 years, I’ve worked in 3 different organizations. It’s important to step back and get a sense of scale for how many people are impacted by these events. A key component of explaining your results is to demonstrate the impact of your efforts. Here are the numbers of people represented by my team off-sites:

    • Org #1: 8,000 employees, 5 business units, leadership team of 36 and 1 EA. While the group supported the larger, Operations team with tens of thousands of employees, the ultimate customers are the people who buy products from Amazon.com -over 300 million global registered Amazon users.
    • Org #2 had over 3,000 employees, 2 business units, a leadership team of 28 and 2 EAs, until 1 Director and their EA left in mid-2022. This team also supported the Operations organization and people who buy from Amazon.com.
    • Org #3 had 2 Directors who manage completely unrelated teams. The smaller team has just under 100 and the other team, my manager has 300 employees. Their work supports all Amazon employees of near 2 million globally.

    Risks or sacrifices?

    Risks and how I mitigate them:

    • Technology can fail. I bring my small tech kit and the contact info for the local tech support.
    • For one event, I’d negotiated room blocks for all attendees. Four people didn’t use their room and I had to pay for one night x 4 rooms as a penalty. The hotel agreed to release these rooms for the remainder of the off-site at no additional cost, with a total cost for unused rooms of about $1000. In deep diving why the rooms weren’t used: one person didn’t need a room, three didn’t show up and they had not responded to the invite. My lesson learned was to 1) confirm whether or not attendees needed hotel rooms and 2) contact each non-responded to confirm attendance. I updated my off-site tracker moving forward and did not repeat this mistake.
    • When I was in Org #2 with 2 EAs, I asked the other EA to help me find hotels and team event venues for 3 off-sites.
    • After the other EA in Org #2 left, I didn’t ask for help but should have and it cost my health: exhausted, crabby and heading toward burnout. This when when compiled event data to present options to leadership in an effort to change how we run team off-sites. We all need help from time to time and I would ask for help in the future.

    Building relationships

    I was unable to attend one team off-site in Dallas due to a mild upper respiratory infection (URI) and attended remotely. It was bad enough that I didn’t want to fly but not so bad that I couldn’t work.

    Let’s say I’m in an interview and am asked: How effective was the remote support and why didn’t you ask another EA to attend?

    With the EA team was scattered across the US, none were in the location of this off-site. My URI appeared late afternoon before my trip. I’m west coast based and everyone else was on the east coast. By the time I realized I should not fly, the others had signed off for the day and I felt I needed to ask attendees to help. I’d built relationships with my teams and key stakeholders. I asked a couple of people to do specific, small tasks throughout the meeting: pick up the catering, get AV assistance get to the event venue early. One onsite attendee reached out to ask where I was. They thought I onsite because I knew everything that was going on and were surprised to learn I was in Seattle.

    Follow-up question: Could you have done anything differently?

    I could have reached out to my peers as soon as I realized I was sick to ask if anyone could travel to the event. Even if the answer was no, at least I asked the EA team for help.

    I hope this post helps you understand the importance of collecting and analyzing data to help you prepare for interviews, a promotion or update you job description. Managing and analyzing data is a key skill to help EAs transition to a strategic business partner.

  • So You Want to Become an EA

    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.

  • Social Media Deep Clean

    Hello there! I’ve been on various social media platforms for over a decade. In this post, I share my thoughts on why it’s good to clean up your virtual world.

    As an introvert, I prefer to interact with people in small groups. It was time to apply this philosophy to my virtual world.

    Ever since I start my first blog (2006…yikes!), I’d post regularly for a while, then my job would get very busy and I’d settle into random posting. Posting every day, week, or even month simply doesn’t work for me. I choose to post when I have something to say and accept this method works against me with all the social media platform algorithms. My sporadic posting is why I’ve changed this site to a Subscriber system so my community is notified when I publish a new article.

    LinkedIn

    I’ve been on LinkedIn for over a decade. In that time, I’ve had 2 arts and crafts blogs and 2 office professional blogs and closed 2 of them. I’ve always shared my posts to LinkedIn. I’ve also been pretty loose about accepting connection invites, doing a minimum of vetting.

    This laxity has resulted in two things: 1) my very old posts have dead links and 2) I accepted connections to people I don’t actually know.

    This week, I pruned the dead posts and removed connections to people I don’t interact with. My profile looks much more organized and professional with some artistic flair, which is how I want to present myself.

    Facebook, Instagram, YouTube

    I’ve applied this to my other personal social media accounts as well. There has to be a genuine connection with them.

    I also hadn’t looked at my Facebook groups and pages in a very long time. I found that most are related to interests I no longer pursue or I interact with those groups on other sites. The ads are bad enough, but being connected to pages I’m not interested in clogs up my feed and pushes aside the people I want to interact with.

    Time for a virtual de-clutter?

    I highly recommend going Marie Kondo on your social media accounts. Focus on the people, groups and pages that bring you joy today.

    It felt so good to unsubscribe, unfollow and disconnect from the people and resources that no longer resonate for me.

    People change. It’s ok. Give it a try. If these people, groups and pages are meant to be in your orbit, they’ll circle back.

    It’ll be just fine.

  • Delegate Category Rule Set-up

    Hello EA pros! As you know, I recently changed teams at work. I support two new executives and their teams that do not intersect. The two interim EAs were quite happy to turn these leaders over to me. For my first week on the job, I got hammered with incoming meeting requests and needed a way to manage incoming invites so I re-examined using Outlook Rules to apply Color Categories.

    I added 3 new colors: one for each leader and one for the org to keep track of the leadership team level mechanisms. I created a simple rules (one condition and one result with no exceptions) to manage the flood of emails.

    Here are the instructions to applying a color category to incoming

    Color Category for Delegate Invites

    Before you create the rule:

    1.       Open the invite

    2.       Open Properties (File > Properties)

    3.       In the Internet headers box, find the target email.  It should looks something like this: X-MS-Exchange-Inbox-Rules-Loop: alias@company.com Copy the italicized code

    4.       Close the message

    Create the rule:

    5.       From the Ribbon, select Rules

    6.       Create Rule

    7.       Select Advanced Option. Step 1: Check “with specific words in the message header”. Step 2: click specific words and paste the code from #3 above (should be on your clipboard). Click Add.  Click OK.

    8.       Click Next. Step 1: assign a Category. Step 2: click Category and select your color category

    9.       Click Next. Choose an Exception, if appropriate.

    10.   Click Next

    11.   Finish Rule Set up. Step 1: Name the Rule (short name is best). Step 2: check both boxes (run rule and turn on rule)

    12.   Click Finish

    If you set the rule up correctly, your delegate meeting invites are color coded!

    As mentioned in my post 3 Simple Outlook Automations, I have rules for moving meeting invites into a Meetings to Schedule folder plus 2 other rules.

    I’m going to create a rule to move incoming emails with the words “meeting request” in the subject line into the Meetings to Schedule folder. It won’t catch all the emails, but it would catch some and reduce the time I spend manually moving meeting requests to that folder.

    Standard work tip: use this wording in the email subject line:

    Meeting request | 30 minutes | Name of meeting

    Ask the folks you work with you use this format and share your rule to help your EA besties save time.

    What Outlook time savers have you set up? Leave a comment & share your tips and tricks.

  • Outlook Email Quick Part

    Hello EA pros! A quick post to show the steps for using and inserting a Quick Part into an email. Using Chat GPT and other AI tools is fine when it’s appropriate but there are simple automation tools that require a small amount of time to set up that will save hours of time in the long-run.

    In the enterprise Office suite, this feature is called Quick Parts. In the free Office Online Outlook, it’s called My Templates. For this post, I’ll call this feature Quick Parts.

    Why use a Quick Part? As EAs, we get the same questions over and over: where do I find the list of team email distros? How to I request office supplies? How to I get my desk tech updated? No matter what questions you regularly get, here’s my rule: when you answer a question 3 times, make a Quick Part.

    Open a new email and write your response. This text can be formatted and include links.

    When you’ve fine tuned this message, select the entire block of text. On the Ribbon, select Insert and then select Quick Parts. The pop-up will offer you the chance to save the highlighted text. Choose this and then create a very simple name for this Quick Part. Send the message you created

    The next time you get this question, Reply and put your cursor in the body of the email, select Insert on the Ribbon and select Quick Parts. Then find the message you created by name and insert. Send. Done.

    Below is a screenshot of an email I made using My Templates.

    As EAs, we are very busy. Finding effective automation tools is an easy way to save time that can be spent on higher priority projects for our leaders.  

    It may seem like a small amount time in the moment, but think about how many times you answer certain questions over and over. Five minutes here and there adds up to many hours in the course of a year.

    Develop a habit to think about how much time you spend on ‘simple’ tasks. This time adds up over the course of a year. Should they spend that time on low-priority tasks they can delegate? 

    Doing this builds critical thinking skills that you can apply to your leader and start acting as a strategic partner with your executive.

  • The first 90 days on the job

    Starting a new job as an EA can be both exciting and overwhelming. In your first 90 days, you have the opportunity to make a positive impression on your new leader and the team, as well as set yourself up for success. In this blog post, I provide my thoughts for what to focus on in the first 90 days.

    Responsibilities & Expectations

    In a perfect world, someone is assigned to help you get situated in your new role, understand your responsibilities and expectations, how you fit into the EA team, who is your Lead EA, get your workstation set-up and hand over key information for the job. It may be the outgoing EA or an onboarding buddy.

    If you’re fortunate enough to get a hand-off from the out-going EA, ask for guidance on how to prioritize the work, who are the key players, the leader’s proxies, where are the documents kept. Otherwise, check with your lead EA. Your onboarding buddy may know some answers to org-specific questions if they’ve served as back-up.

    I’ve rarely had a transition as the incoming EA but I like to leave a place better than I found it. For each job, I create a playbook with key info, contacts, leader and team information.

    Whatever the case, you’ll need a clear understanding of your job. Depending on the leader or time of year you join the team, you may be able to dedicate a lot of time in the first couple of weeks to learning the ropes. If you’re thrown into the deep end, block time on your calendar for regular review of new material while you hone the basics.

    Set up your email and calendar mechanisms, get access to the tools and systems you need, get delegate access to your leader’s resources, review (or create) the org chart and take any mandatory training. Take time to explore the team website and whatever shared files are available as well as the company intranet. Start collecting resources you’ll use regularly like travel, expenses, and procurement. Get a corportate credit card if it’s available.

    It’s going to take some time to understand the team’s language. I am a huge fan of joining all the meetings you can, asking questions and taking notes. Your exec needs you to learn the business and will probably allow, if not encourage you, to sit in on meetings.

    As the newbie, you get a free pass for at lease 6 months to ask all the questions. Do it! You may be asking questions other people were afraid to ask because they’ve been there a while they feel they should know the answers. In the process, you gain trust because you’re brave enough to ask questions.

    The first meeting with your leader

    Even when you get a hand-off, it’s up to you and your leader to figure out how to work together. Just because the last EA ran things a certain way, doesn’t mean you need to keep those processes. Use these as a starting point, but it has to make sense to you and your leader.

    Schedule a weekly sync with your new leaders at soon as possible. Depending on the leader and business, you may need more frequent touch points, such as 10 minute morning huddles. This is for you two to work out in the first meeting. You’ll probably touch base every day in some fashion.

    The first meeting is where you re-introduce yourself and collect the basic information you need to work with them: delegate access to the resources you need, meeting and delegate questions, their preferences, key stakeholders, meeting rules and personal information.

    Meet & Greets

    During your first month on the job, get to know your new leader’s colleagues. Schedule one-on-one meetings with their directs and key stakeholders to introduce yourself and learn about their role and how they interact with your leader and the org.

    Ask questions, take notes, learn their names and job titles. You’re going to work with these people moving forward so build a solid foundation to help you work effectively and efficiently.

    Learn the company culture

    Understanding the company culture is important for fitting in and working effectively. Observe how people communicate, dress, and interact with one another. You have to strike a balance between being yourself and fitting in. For example, I work in a very casual, warehouse environment but I’m a suit kinda gal.

    At my interview for my current job, I wore what I thought was pretty casual: a Universal Standard ponte blazer and their Geneva dress (a tee shirt knit fabric). I hit it off with the leader and at the end of the interview, she told me: you’ll need to dress way down for this job or take a lot of guff from the guys. Jeans and a tee shirt are not the most flattering for me but I don’t like to stand out either so I split the difference by wearing a blazer with my jeans & tee or sweater with my slacks and blouse.

    If you didn’t research this information before your interview, learn about the company’s values and mission, and how they are put into practice. If there is an employee handbook, read it to understand the company’s policies and procedures.

    Identify opportunities

    Take a critical look at your current skills and identify areas for improvement. Discuss your goals with your supervisor and lead EA and develop a plan to achieve them. Taking a proactive approach to your professional development will help you grow in your role and make a positive impact on the organization.

    Start building your internal EA network, initially with the EAs you’re most closely connected to. Over time, you can expand your network further. You never know where your next job will be or when you’ll need help finding a new role. Your internal network will be your lifeline when shit goes sideways.

    Establish your brand

    Intentionally creating a reputation that showcases your skills and strengths. While EAs share the core responsibilities, each EA shapes their role to suit their skill set and leaders. What do you want to be know for?

    For example, projects and data are my jam. My leaders think of me first when they need a quick turnaround on data analysis or a project. For the longest time, I dreaded event coordination. While I still lean toward opportunities that use my strengths, I’ve come to appreciate event planning because my team is dispersed across the US. The only time I see them in person is during our team summits. Still not getting super excited about event planning, but I have trackers and lists to jumpstart planning the next team summit.

    What sets you apart from others and how you can contribute to the team? How do you want to be perceived? Take the initiative to offer your help and expertise, and look for opportunities to showcase your skills. You can’t directly support everyone on your executive’s team but you can be a teacher and coach. Or as my friend Candace says, “teach them to fish.”

    The first 90 days on the job as an EA are critical for establishing yourself as a valuable member of the team. You were hired because you have a valuable skill set. Taking time to get to know your new leader and colleagues, understanding your responsibilities and expectations, asking questions, learning about the company culture, identifying areas for improvement, and establishing your personal brand, will set you up for success in your new role. Remember to stay positive, be flexible, and own your professional development

    Feb 29, 2024: minor edits made to post and restricted to subsribers.

  • SMART Goals

    Hello office pros! Today is the last in the series of my Top 3 Tools for EAs: SMART goals. Goal-setting is important but if the goals are not specific, relevant or achievable, you won’t be motivated or possible able to continue. If there is no deadline, it will never get done. Life is hard enough.

    SMART, which stands for:

    • Specific
    • Measureable
    • Achievable
    • Relevant
    • Time-specific

    This is a great for goal-setting. It helps you to consider all the variables, work backwards to set milestone dates, determine your data points and decide if a particular goal is going to serve your career or needs.

    The SMART format is also great to use when you’re considering a job or career path change. Taking the time to put each of your work projects and achievements in this format will help you develop compelling and cohesive stories for the interview.

    I hope you found this series and the tools helpful. Let me know how you’re using the SWOT, Priority Matrix and SMART tools.

    To get a pdf version of this form, check out So You Want to Become an EA.

  • SWOT Analysis

    Hello office pros! In part two of the three part series on my top 3 tools for EAs, I’ll examine the SWOT analysis tool.

    SWOT stands for:

    • Strengths
    • Weaknesses
    • Opportunities
    • Threats

    Traditionally used by business executives to make informed choices, say for a product launch, the SWOT tool has other uses as well. I find it useful to assess the current state of my career as well as prepare for a job change.

    Strengths and Weaknesses are pretty obvious categories. Opportunities are the people or resources that can support your strengths; Threats are people or resources that are barriers or the negatives (for example, taking a pay cut or demotion).

    For example, let’s say you are working in tech and are considering a lateral job change to a nonprofit organization making the world a better place. Noble idea, of course, but before you jump into a new industry, take time to deep dive the world of nonprofits. Nonprofits are very different from corporations. There are plusses and minuses to each. To make a good decision for you and your career, spend time doing research to find out what you’re really getting into. Changing industries is akin to starting over for EAs – you have no or limited knowledge about the new industry and business.

    You need to learn the language, new acronyms, and rhythm of business, so you may have to take a demotion or pay cut if you change industries. It’s better to know upfront than get through the interview process and receive an offer only to find out the salary is below what you are able or willing to accept.

    I’ve created the SWOT Analysis workbook for my So You Want to Becomen an EA series. Follow this link to the EA Mentor Google Drive and download a copy. For personal use only.

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