An Executive Assistant

Sort Data in Excel 2007

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:58:00 -0800

There are many ways to sort data in Excel 2007. I have listed some methods I personally use to sort, filter or format data in Excel.

Ascending order (A-Z) or descending order (Z-A).
Multiple Columns.
Auto filter.
Custom sort using cell color.

To sort data click on the DATA tab in the ribbon. Now you can choose what method you’d like to use.

I have to create and edit large spreadsheets, so I prefer using the below method. Here I can rank the sort order of the columns. For example, if I am working on a contact list I can sort by “First Name”, “Last Name”, “Company”, “Country of Residence”, “Email”, etc. Try and see what works for you.

Set Gmail - Personal Email on Blackberry

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:04:00 -0700

There is a good chance you have a Blackberry smartphone if you are an Executive / Admin Assistant. My Outlook account was configured to the Blackberry on my first day of work. But I added my Gmail account on the Blackberry to make life easier. It is a very simple process and you should be able to integrate your Yahoo, Hotmail account (if you have one) using the same steps.

Navigate to the home screen.
Locate the Setup icon.
Click and you should see Setup Wizard or Email Settings or Email Setup.
Click on I want to create or add an email address and click Next.
The next step usually asks you to enter your email address and password. Just follow the instructions from there and you should be good to go!

Schedule a meeting in multiple Time Zones

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:59:00 -0700

As an Executive Assistant I schedule a ton of meetings in different time zones. One tool I use quite often now is the Easy Clock. My colleague told me about this site and I can’t thank her enough for this.

http://easyclock.appspot.com/

Software Applications for Executive & Admin Assistants

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:30:00 -0800

Is it your first day of work as an Executive Assistant or Admin Assistant? Be prepared and hit the ground running. I was eager to personalize my computer from day one at my current work place. IMHO I have listed the must have software applications (mostly open source and free) for Executive Assistants and Admin Assistants. So get cracking and install the applications that fit your need.

Foxit Reader Fast and perfect for reading tons of PDF files.
Cute PDF Install this to create PDF files from any document. Great way tool for Executive Assistants and Admin Assistants, no matter what your location.
Dropbox Great way to store, sync and share files. Have instant access to all your files, no matter what your location. A handy tool for all Executive Assistant’s and Admin Assistant’s.
7zip Perfect way to compress files / folders fast.
Anti-Virus (AVG Free) Anti-Virus software trusted by more than 110 million users around the world to protect their computers.
Skype Free calls over the internet anywhere in the world, video chat, conference call, international calls, the list is endless! A must have to stay connected.
Pidgin Universal chat client. Very handy if you use multiple accounts to chat. Create an account with Pidgin and add your chat clients such as Yahoo!, Google Talk, MSN, AIM, Zephyr etc.
Chrome If like me you always have multiple tabs open, and one crashes, only that one rogue tab will close, leaving the entire browser unaffected,. Fast although uses to much memory space.
Firefox My favorite browser, fast, user-friendly and secure just like Chrome, but with additional features to customize the browser.
Adblock Plus Annoyed by the pesky pop up ads? A must have to block them. Install as a add-on in Firefox.
Xmarks A must have to synchronize bookmarks. I feel Xmarks come in handy for me to stay organized. I am never at a loss for information or passwords. No matter which computer I use, I always have access to all my bookmarks.
VLC Media Player 2.2 downloads/sec, one the most popular video players around. Ditch windows media player.
Pandora Zen! Soothing new age music playing in the background keeps me focused.
Google Reader Read all your favorite sites in one convenient place.
Gimp Great alternative to Photoshop, since it is free.
Picasa Automatically finds all the photos on your computer, organizing them in seconds. And I just love how easy it is to fix the red eye in photos with Picasa.
Notepad A cross between notepad and wordpad.
WordWeb English thesaurus & dictionary that can look up words in any program.
OpenOffice Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Databases, great alternative to MS Office.
Google Desktop, X1 Can’t find that email? Instant search is an important feature every Executive Assistant or Administrative Assistant should use.

Create a PDF document

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:29:00 -0800

Convert a word document or screen shot into a PDF document using CutePDF. I am (as mentioned in many posts) a fan of open source and free stuff. This is a great free software you can download onto your computer and use to convert documents. How does this work? Well when you download the CutePDF, it installs itself as a printer subsystem. So all you really need to do is choose CutePDF from the printer list and hit the “print” button. Voila! Really as simple as that. One of the handiest tools an Executive Assistant or Administrative Assistant can have owing to the large amounts of paperwork we handle and edit.

Coffee Shops in Palo Alto

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:28:00 -0800

Two amazing coffee shops on downtown Palo Alto: Caffe del Doge and Coupa Cafe. Caffe del Doge is cozy and inviting. The capuccino was just the perfect blend of heaven in a cup and for the chocolate lovers the pastries are equally delectable. Coupa Cafe is another treasure with great coffee and yes some amazing chocolates and savory treats to eat. Certainly worth a try, you will feel it is money well spent.

Export Contacts From Outlook To Excel

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:27:00 -0800

If you work as an Executive Assistant or Administrative Assistant, knowing how to export contacts from Outlook to a Excel spreadsheet is very important. It is extremely easy and as always I try to include as many screenshots as possible to make it that more easier.

Open outlook click file and then click on import and export.
Click the option export to a file when the dialog box opens ant then click next.
Select Microsoft Excel 97-2003 option and then click next.
Select the contacts folder you wish to export and then save where you generally like to save stuff.
After you type in the name of the excel sheet, click save and then hit finish!

Interview Questions for Executive & Admin Assistants

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:25:00 -0800

Most frequently asked questions for an Executive Assistant, Administrative Assistant interview for C-level executives.

Tell me about yourself. I can safely say this is almost always a sure shot question by the interviewer. A great chance to sell yourself. Plan well, be precise and practice in front of anyone you can find. Yes, even your dog is fine! Try to touch upon a little bit of your personal self, this will give the interviewer a good insight into your personality. It is OK to be a little humorous as long as you don’t act like a clown.
What are your current duties as an Administrative/Executive Assistant?
What skills will you bring to the company?
What are the most important qualities to have as an Administrative/ Executive Assistant ?
Did you look at our company website? If for some reason you did not get time (which should not happen), don’t lie.
What type of personalities do you work best with?
How do you rate your computer skills? It might be good to mention you create presentations and reports using graphs, charts, pivot tables on a recurring basis and are quite comfortable working on social media sites and are always working towards increasing your skills. You need to come across as an advanced user of MS Office (Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint).
Describe yourself in three words.
Do you have experience booking domestic and international travel?
Do you have experience handling calendars? Go a step further and mention you handle calendars in multiple time zones.
How do you organize your daily schedule?
What practice do you follow answering emails?
What practice do you follow when dealing with confidential paperwork?
How would you prioritize tasks if you support more than one person? Is there a system you follow?
You’ve been asked to set up a meeting. What actions will you take?
Are you good at keeping matters confidential if required? Explain an instance, don’t just say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Confidentiality is a very important aspect in the Venture Capital industry. You never want an outsider to know what deals your firm is conducting due diligence on and what deals they are strongly leaning towards. And similarly most of the executives you will assist will have a need for confidentiality.
Are you open to working after hours if required and be available on email? It is OK to ask how much extra time the interviewer means. Don’t just say yes to everything, you will come across as a vegetable.
Our requirement is for someone who can multi task and wear many hats. Does this sound like something you are interested in? Give an example of multi tasking here.
Describe a time you were working on a project, and your colleagues did not agree with you, how did you solve this and come to an agreement?
How do you deal with difficult situations at work?
When was the last time you were in a high pressure situation?
What was the biggest challenge in your previous / current position?
What are your strengths? Again another great opportunity to sell yourself and show signs of great characteristics skills, which will make the interviewer want to hire you on the spot. I feel the key components to success as an Executive Assistant are attention to detail, ability to multi task, strong communication skills, good listening skills, and ability and desire to be 2 steps ahead in optimizing time of the executive you support.
What is your weakness? Careful! Don’t let your guard down. This can be a tricky question. Don’t lie, but ensure what comes out of your mouth does not result in you cringing later. Gather your thoughts and keep a mental check of what you are saying. And please don’t try to talk about your strengths disguised as weaknesses, “sometimes I just work too hard”. :)
How do you handle a large workload?
Why do you want to leave your current employer?
What salary are you looking for?
Do you have any questions for me? Always important.

Judge the interviewers subtle reactions to an answer and improvise. Be punctual, dress smart, always have an extra copy of your resume and smile. I hope this post is helpful for the readers who have an interview lined up in the near future.

Administrative, Executive, Personal, Assistant - Job Classification

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:24:00 -0800

Admin, Executive, Personal Assistant - aren’t they all the same? According to the US Department of Labor the executive / administrative field is a lucrative field with job prospect expected to grow almost 11% by 2018. In my opinion there are great opportunities for people with great communication skills, advanced proficiency in computers, ability to work with ease on Windows and Mac and ability to grasp any new application thrown their way without breaking a sweat. I personally love Linux, Open Office, Google Docs etc., but it is tough escaping from the tight hold of Microsoft.

Executive Assistants support top executive(s) who have the authority to shape the direction of the firm. The role requires someone who can work independently, be very discrete and tactful dealing with people, know how best to leverage time of the said executive, has communication skills to operate on his/her behalf and make informed decisions in a tough situation. Each day can differ from the previous one and bring new tasks and challenges. I remember learning Salesforce and Google Analytics, all in one week. The role calls for flexibility and availability after work hours (at least on email) very frequently. Duties of an Executive Assistant can range from handling confidential paperwork, scheduling meetings, creating complex reports, conducting research, arranging travel, organizing company events, managing social network presence of the firm etc. One needs to be two steps ahead by anticipating needs of the the executive.

An Administrative Assistant generally does a lot of clerical work and is the go to person for smooth running of office functions. Duties include inventory management, purchase of supplies, distribution of office mail, preparing reports etc. They know how to get stuff done!

A Personal Assistant can be self employed or a business Personal Assistant. Duties can range from running personal errands such as grocery shopping, collecting dry cleaning of the executive and/or family, supervising housekeeping along with the duties as mentioned in the Executive Assistant role.

From my experience if you want to work with quality people and get paid well, look for a job in a Private Equity or Venture Capital firm. Don’t be disheartened if a job posting only asks for experience from similar firms. Most Venture Capitalist’s are simply looking for a smart, sharp, confident and personable person. As a starting point, try and be a pro in Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Most of your day will be consumed in MS Office, so the faster you learn it, the better. There are tons of sites where you can watch tutorials on MS Office. That’s it. Now it’s time for me to doze off, so I can hopefully wake up on time to go to the gym. Why can I not eat a pound of chocolate a week? Why do I have to worry about my weight? Hahaha .. back to the topic .. all in all each role is unique, if you lack experience as an Executive Assistant make up for it with the desire to learn. I am certain your interviewer will notice. :)

Microsoft Word 2007 Mail Merge - Name Badges

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:31:00 -0800

Mail merge can help many documents such as email messages, envelopes, labels and letters. Hopefully by the time you finish reading this blog you will know how Microsoft Word’s mail merge will help create mass level name badges using the label template. There are two primary files in mail merge the primary document and the data source. No point boring you with the explanation, you can find this online. As an Executive Assistant handling corporate events is part of our job. When the events have a good sum of people attending, it is a good practice to create name badges using mail merge. No room for error!

Open a Word document, I have the 2007 version, but you should not have trouble with the 2003 version. Click on the mailings tab, then start mail merge choose in the ribbon, scroll down and click step by step mail merge.

Click on label options on right column to select a template. When the below dialog box opens click OK after choosing the exact label you want.

Click on select recipient, use an existing list, browse. When the dialog box opens select the excel sheet where the list is saved. Click OK after selecting. This opens the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box. Here you can select or de-select any names, make changes etc.

When you click on the Address Block link the Match Fields dialog box opens. Here you can make sure that all the fields are correct.

Arrange your labels. When you make the formatting changes click update labels.

Complete the merge. You can preview your labels before you print them or make individual changes.

Travel Tips for Executive Assistants and Administrative Assistant

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:30:00 -0800

Executive Assistants spend a good amount of time making travel arrangements for the people they support. This is also true for Admin Assistants in many firms. Sometimes the travel calls for crazy routes with frequent international stops, last minute flight change, upgrades, refunds, and cancellations. In that case it is usually a good practice to enlist the services of a great travel agency. I have found this very useful in getting better rates and service. I have also listed some links I frequently use while booking flights (domestic & international) and hotels. I think these travel tips should definitely be in every Executive Assistants / Administrative Assistants tool box!

Spotnana

http://www.spotnana.com/

This agency deals only in business and first class. Very handy site if your boss or even you travel international and want a competitive rate. They will give the best possible rates for as many airlines as you prefer. The site is not live yet, but on filing the contact form someone contacts you the same day.

Plaza Travel

http://www.plazatravel.com/

I have been using the service of this agency of a long time now. Great service, great rates, great response time! Definitely worth a try.

Magellan Vacations

http://www.magellanvacations.com/

This travel agency specializes in luxury hotels. I cannot stress how good this site is if you or your boss travel in style. The rates are almost always very competitive and the agents always try to get the hotel to give free upgrades.

Seat Guru

http://www.seatguru.com/

Booked a flight and uncertain of what seat to pick? Let seat guru do the job. Seating charts of pretty much all the major airlines. Find the best seats before you fly.

Some other sites I frequently visit are Kayak, Priceline and Southwest for great rates. Hopefully the above travel tips will help you, as they have helped me. All in all the above are definitely worth a shot.

Google Voice

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:29:00 -0800

One thing I have found handy over the past few months is Google Voice. If you do not know about it, Google it! Currently it is by invitation only. I got my Google Voice number sometime last year, the service launched around March 2009. You choose a number with the preferred area code from the numbers Google offers. Some great benefits of this service are:

You can link all your current numbers to this one Google Voice number. So when someone calls, all the phones ring at the same time.
You don’t have to give out your actual cell number to people. This is real handy! J
Your voice mail is recorded online and a transcript is sent to your account.
All in all it is a great thing to have. See, if someone can send you an invite, you will love it.

Last but not least comes in handy as an Administrative or Executive Assistant, when you do not want to really give the actual cell number of the person you support.

Auto Correction Feature Outlook 2007

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:21:00 -0800

Do you have to type the same text in different emails many times a day? For example, “I would like to schedule a 15 minute call”, “Thank you for the flexibility”, “You can reach me at this number 000-000-0000”. You can use the Auto Correction feature in Outlook for this. This feature allows you to create shortcuts for repeated text. For example, whenever I write, 4f (a shortcut I created), Outlook replaces it with the actual text. “Thank you for the flexibility”.

Go to Tools>Options

Spelling>Spelling and AutoCorrection

MS Outlook 2007 - Organize Emails Using Rules and Alerts

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:18:00 -0800

As an Executive Assistant being organized is ever so important. Rules & Alerts are one of the most useful tools in Office 2007. It helps increase email efficiency by managing incoming and outgoing messages. Here are some examples of what I do:

Move messages from certain person or company to a specific folder
Reroute messages based on subject line, key phrases and or catch words
Have a sound play when an important message arrives
Assign a category based on the content of a message
Filter junk messages and send them to the junk or any other folder

Microsoft Office will apply the rule to the message as soon as it arrives in the Inbox. I worked on a very massive event sometime back, for which I sent out close to 2000 email invites. Yes, you read right! So, the subject line in the response was pretty much the same in all emails. I set a rule, any email that has “Re: Invitation to XYZ event” in the subject line, move to Event Response folder. This way, my Inbox was not flooded with these emails. The emails automatically moved to the assigned folder.

Alerts well… they alert you! J This is good for notification. Not everyone will sit and stare at the computer screen all day. But of course if you are secretly watching your favorite program on Hulu, that is an entirely different story. So, this comes in handy when you’d like some kind of sound to play as soon an email arrives in your Inbox from an assigned person, say your boss. My mailbox is very organized because of the Rules & Alerts feature.

Navigation Pane>Tools>Rules and Alerts

New Rule>Move Messages from someone to a Folder

MS Outlook 2007 - Organize Emails Using Color Category

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:11:00 -0800

As an Executive Assistant being organized is ever so important. Organizing emails using color categories is a very useful tool in Outlook 2007. I use this feature to group emails and then later pulling them by color.

Go to Color>All Categories. A new box will open up, label the colors. For example, each time you make a purchase, assign the yellow color.

Then create a search folder for the yellow color. Next time when you need to search for expenses incurred for the year, click on the search folder and all the messages assigned the expense category will show up! No more printing and filing receipts!

MS Outlook 2007 - Organize Emails Using Color Codes

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:11:00 -0800

Let’s face it we all procrastinate when it comes to organizing emails! I know for a fact that each time I would have a new Outlook account I would leave all the organizing, filing, color coding, and rule setting for the last minute. MS Office plays a major role in our lives as Executive or Administrative Assistants and things can go so much easier if we use all the cool shortcuts there are! Granted many a time when Outlook refuses to cooperate and keeps sending error messages, I have felt like throwing my computer out the window and blaming it on someone else, when HR comes running to inquire. ;) But hey! I keep saying, let us start the day with a few drinks and then all will be fine! Ha!

I hope these tips help you in organizing your mailbox. I will divide this on four sections: a) Color Codes, b) Color Category c) Flags, and d) Rules and Alerts. This is a great way to organize emails if you handle multiple mailboxes

Tools>Organize

Choose Using Colors>Color Messages>Type in the name>Click Apply Color

Last step