Message #72368

[msmarieh]

Well some of these you really do have to answer for yourself of course, since we don't know what you like or dislike or what your skills are. You might find it more helpful to write YOUR answers and let us critique them and offer some suggestions for phrasing.

but... here's what I would say in that situation (or recommend another admin say):

What do you like about your job most / least? I'm not really a spotlight kind of person. I love that I can be behind the scenes attending to details and pulling off the perfect event without having to be on stage giving the performance. What I like least are some of the tedious aspects that every job comes with. In the case of administrative work, it's the filing. It's just not my favorite. But my solution to that is to file everything immediately so it never builds up into an imposing pile.

Examples of where you used your initiative - (I have lots of these, in fact, I created an addendum page for my resume for my eyes only that lists out several examples of when I have shown initiative, which I review prior to interviews so they are fresh in my mind - look for times when have you looked around and saw a need and volunteered to fill it? Examples would be if you created a desk manual for your position, when you reorganized the filing room to make it more efficient, when you changed a paper form to an electronic process, etc.) In my case, I usually say that when I started at my present company, they were getting ready to launch a new web based suggestion box and asked me to distribute powerpoint presentations to management and the employees to teach them about it. I reviewed those presentations myself first, and followed the instructions used in the presentations, then wrote a list of questions I had (from the perspective of my boss wanting an overview of all suggestions, from the perspective of the manager reviewing and responding to the suggestions, and from the perspective of the employee submitting a suggestion).The kinds of questions I asked included things like - how do we run a list of all suggestions submitted to date or all open suggestions? How can we evaluate how long it takes for a suggestion to be resolved? What happens if no one responds? As a direct result of my questions, they realized that there were numerous areas that hadn't been considered in the process. They had me meet with the IT group that had designed the suggestion box to review my questions, adding things like date fields and automatically generated email follow up reminders for every stage of the process. The project was delayed while they addressed my questions, but it rolled out seamlessly and now really meets their needs.

Examples of where you handled a difficult situation -  I once had a number of tasks assigned to me that were beyond the scope of the amount of time I had allocated. I calculated the number of hours I anticipated the projects taking and met with my boss to discuss options - which included asking for assistance from my fellow administrative assistants, hiring a temporary employee to help, changing the scope of the projects, changing the deadlines, etc. Following our discussion, we were able to come up with a solution that worked well for all parties involved. By being proactive, I was able to get the help I needed and get the jobs done on time.

Tell me about yourself (on this one I either say too much and possibly ramble due to nerves or not enough). (You're on your own for this one...  but I would say... ) I'd love to! I've been an administrative professional for over 20 years. I've been very fortunate to work in a variety of work environments which have exposed me to a lot of different ways of doing business. Thus, my experience allows me to go into almost any office situation and hit the ground running. I'm a big believer in technology and lifelong learning, so I recently completed my Master Level Certification of the Microsoft Office 2007 programs. In addition. I pride myself on building teams at work, so in the past I have volunteered to help coordinate administrative cross training teams, develop educational programs for the office staff, and conducted morale and team building efforts when requested by my boss. It's not uncommon for me to do a needs analysis of the workplace and provide my boss with a list of suggestions of areas where I could help to improve efficiency or save money. (and then I am prepared with examples of when this has happened in the past).