Office Productivity - Effective Loitering & Dropping In

Whether you are an executive assistant or anyone needing face time with your boss or colleague, effective loitering and drop ins, also known as drive bys, are tactics you should employ. It means standing around and waiting while they finish up their conversation so you can swoop in unscheduled before the next meeting starts. Here are 10 tips I hope you find handy.

1) Stay within eye sight, but not within listening distance.
You want them to see you waiting, but give them enough privacy so they can talk in peace. You want to stay within eye shot so they don't think they have more time to talk because you are no longer waiting around.

2) Mouth patient messages.
While waiting, you can mouth "no rush" or "take your time" so they don't feel pressured. If the wait is too long for you, you can also always leave with a friendly good bye wave, the "I'll call you" hand gesture or again mouthing "I'll come back" or "catch you later." Remember to smile and look friendly when you do this!

3) Tell those around you that you are loitering.
Whenever you are loitering outside anyone's office, the people sitting near by may give you questionable looks. It's best to explain you are loitering so they don't think you're standing there spying on them or wonder why you've been in the same spot for 10 minutes. It also helps executive assistants know you're only hoping to get in unscheduled and if you don't it's okay.

4) Ask for good drop in times.
If you're trying to see someone who has an executive assistant, it's good to ask for ball park times on when a drop in might be good. This way you have 3-5 times you can try throughout the day to catch the person between meetings. If you're really close with the assistant, you can get extra information like when is NOT a good time or to be helpful you can remind the person you're seeing, "I know Jason from Accounting will be here soon."

5) Don't react to their convo.
When you are waiting your turn, don't react to anything you see or hear as you are supposed to be invisible to them. This goes along with the no listening in rule. If you don't give them their privacy, they are more inclined to walk to a different space or shut the door on you thus cocooning them from the outside world and the chance for you to get in there quicker.

6) Preface your question with permission.
As soon as it's your turn, ask "Do you have 30 secs?" or however much time you need. Always offer to come back at a better time. If they are finishing up an email, state you can wait until they are done. Do not start talking while they are clearly finishing up something else. If it seems they need an extra 2-3 minutes before they are done with that email, state you'll go use the restroom or grab a water so they don't feel bad or pressured.

7 ) Suggest a walk and talk.
When really pressed for time, offer the person a walk and talk. This way they really know it will be a short convo and they won't be late and can kill two birds with one stone. Walk someone back to their office, their car, their next meeting, the kitchen, but not the restroom.

8) Bring stuff while you wait.
Since you may end up waiting 10 or 15 minutes, bring something to do. Organize your thoughts. Check your Blackberry for messages. Brainstorm for your next meeting while you wait. Write out your to do list for the day. You might as well be productive while you wait. You do not want to stare at them like a hawk while you are waiting or look bored.

9) Loitering and drive bys are meant for 30 sec - 5 min convos max.
Usually if it takes any longer than that, you should schedule 15 minutes on someone's calendar. You really just need a yes or no answer, clarification, or direction instead of having long, drawn out, thought-provoking pow wow sessions.

10) Don't take offense.
Sometimes your boss will have to run off to a meeting to take a call in the middle of your drop in time. Don't take it personally and state you understand the new competing request is a higher priority. Don't say anything to make them feel bad or that you are less important.

Rejection

Throughout my career I’ve been on both sided of the rejection table. It’s not fun on either side. The worst is when no feedback can be given or when it can be given the information is so very unhelpful and out of your control, the only saving grace is that you did try your best. I wanted to dedicate a post on proper rejection etiquette when you are the one having to tell bad news to someone.

You’ll find that in your career you’ll have to hire people, a vendor, or ask people to carve out time of their busy lives to create a bid, proposal, or do research for you. And in doing your due diligence, you’ll have to reach out to a minimum of 3 people or businesses if not more. However, you can only pick one in the end.

Although you can’t offer everyone a job or the contract, what you can do is handle the rejection process with a little dignity and humanity. Here are my suggestions that I hope you will find helpful.

1. Do not ignore their emails or calls when they follow up asking about status or the final outcome.

Even if you don’t have an answer yet, tell them that. Encourage them to keep in touch and to ping you every week or give them a time frame of when you may know.

2. When you do know, tell them instead of leaving them in the dark.

It’s only fair that if you’ve put someone through a lengthy interview process, bidding process, or asked them to take your call or meet with you, you tell them what happened. You don’t have to tell them the entire truth, but you should say something to provide closure.

3. Call them, send an email, and speak with them in person.

Call them to try explain very briefly what the final outcome was, to thank them, and to encourage them to keep in touch or that you will also keep them in mind for the future. If they are not there, do not leave a voicemail, email them saying you tried them and then call them again and speak to them on the phone.

4. Warn them of the bad news.

You can preface your email or conversation with, “I wish the news was better.” And give just enough of an explanation on why they couldn’t be picked, but not so much that it would be bad form.

5. When you can afford it, send a thank you gift.

If you or your company can afford a thank you gift for vendors that didn’t land the contract, send a reasonable thank you gift as a gesture of appreciation for working with your deadlines and being so attentive. This can be for the last two or three vendors that gave you the tasting session, walk thru, and met with you 2-3 times or took your calls in the middle of the night.

Overall, you want to own up that you feel terrible that you couldn’t choose them and realize they worked really hard to land the job, account, or deal. You want to honor their efforts and leave the door open for future collaboration and possibility.

Answering Reader Mail: What questions should I ask an interviewer when applying for an Executive Assistant position?

"I'm an avid reader. Your blog is fabulous! I hope more posts are on the way!

What questions should I ask an interviewer when applying for an Executive Assistant position? I do come prepared with questions. However, sometimes during an interview, the interviewer answers all of my questions during the conversation without me even asking. Then at the end of the interview, I'm stumped on what else to ask regarding the Executive Assistant position or their company. I feel as though if I don't ask, I'm not showing interest!"

Dear T,

Thank you for being an avid reader and for submitting a question! :) I hope my blogs have been helpful to you! Please also feel free to ask more questions and suggest topics. If you are on Twitter, I would love to follow you there as well!

The easy way to answer this question is to have you Google interview questions online. You can find a trove of them.

However, one of the best ways to approach forming questions is to ask yourself, "Is this the best fit for me?" Does the role align with your career goals, work/life balance needs, and your values? Not all roles are created equal and it's your job to approach each opportunity to vet them yourself. Your goal is to find out as much information as possible so there are few surprises and to have a sense of what the role is before you take it. Some good questions to ask might be:

-What is the breakdown of the role? Is it 50% event planning, 10% personal assistant work, and 40% executive assistant/admin work?

-Is this a position that I can receive more responsibilities after a year or two or get promoted within the department?

-With my background, what are some challenges I might face?

When you start brainstorming, you can also ask questions to help showcase your talents and skills better too. On the other hand, you can also lead into talking about projects or programs you may want to learn more about and get more experience with. An approach I use is to ask the question and then explain why I asked it. This way it becomes a dialogue instead of just and Q and A session. Here are two examples.

-Is the executive tech savvy? How tech savvy is the executive?
(They answer.)
The reason why I ask is because I’ve worked for a couple of older executives who were not as tech savvy. Some didn’t know how to type, some liked to write out their speeches by hand which I had to type, etc. So I’m open to “handholding” and understand how each executive works differently.

-Will I be using Excel a lot?
(They answer.)
The reason why I ask is because I am proficient in Word and Powerpoint, but I have the most experience with Excel and really enjoy doing spreadsheets and formulas.

-Are there any industry-specific programs I will need to learn?
(They answer.)
I’m always very eager to learn a new skill or become an expert in the programs I already know.

Finally, ask peripheral questions that are nonetheless important - about training, culture, and challenges with adapting. Since you should be taking notes during an interview, any new information you learn, you can ask questions for clarification or a more in-depth answer.

One type of question you may have overlooked are the “closer” questions.

-What is your hiring timeline?
-What are the next steps?
-May I have your business card before I go?

When I interview, I have a set of 15-20 questions ready, knowing I won’t get to them all or some of them may be answered along the way. I always bring a copy of the actual job description with me. I highlight certain things I didn’t understand or compare it to what they are telling me versus what HR wrote up. I bring notes of research I did on the company from wikipedia, current news, and visiting their website. I look for upcoming projects, their senior management org chart, industry news, and I research what sort of company culture they have. On average, it takes me about 2 hours to prepare for an interview.

Always remember to end the interview on a positive note by asking why they enjoy working at the company and to send a thank you card!

T, I hope this helps and thank you for being a loyal reader! :)

Your Emotions Hold You Back

It’s always interesting how standing on the outside of a situation gives a vastly different perspective than to be inside or within that given situation. Upon reading and reflection, the defining element is one’s emotional investment or lack thereof to said scenario.

Even in life or death situations, people hold back from doing the right or best thing because an emotion - guilt, pride, sorrow, embarrassment, anger - is holding them back. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s book where he talks about the pilot communication problem and the resulting crashes, you will know what I mean. Whenever you are confronted with a problem and have to act or change something, when you are not eager to jump in, there’s an emotional barrier you have to overcome.

At first, you may not know what it is. There is just an uncomfortable, nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right. And as you talk to your friends, whatever advice or suggestion they give, you shoot it down. Logically all their solutions make perfect sense and will, in fact, solve your problem. However, what you need isn’t a solution - it’s an emotional breakthrough to come to terms with whatever thought, feeling, or misperception you carry about the problem you have.

Until you can be okay with where you are, you won’t be okay with getting to where you need to be. You will allow excuses and laziness to justify not doing anything because you are hoping the problem will magically go away or with enough denial, perhaps you’ll learn to deal with it.

Often, facing the world and seeing reality for what it is, is really difficult. It’s great to walk the line of optimism, hope, and perhaps things changing in a split second, if you are patient just a little bit longer. You wonder if you misunderstood or could have said or done the wrong thing to contribute to the problem.

Life is short. Every day you live that you aren’t actively pursuing your goals or happiness, is another day wasted. Waiting for the right time or person becomes just that - a waiting game.
So whatever it is that you are mulling about, figure out what it is you really want, then figure out how to get there in the smartest, shortest time possible. Life is already hard enough, and will throw challenges your way, so you will already lose time, energy, and money. Waiting only doubles that deficit.

I was taught at a young age to carpe diem. L, I hope you will too. Although it may sound selfish to put yourself first, if you aren’t happy and cared for, you can’t contribute to those around you - be it at work, at home, or in the community. Sometimes, solving other people’s problems should not be your concerns or your burdens to bear. It doesn’t make you a bad person to want a life of your own. I sense that you are trying to grasp that concept and I know it isn’t easy. Everyone has a choice and at times they are all hard, difficult, lesser of the two evil “choices.” However, they are choices that do, in fact, exist. What will you choose, when, and more importantly, for what reasons? And if you don’t look out yourself, who will? This is my way, through invisible, magical osmosis... I am thinking of you. :)

Be Your Boss For a Day

One of the best ways to become a better assistant is to be your boss for a day. What I mean by this is hire someone to take care of a task for you or be your assistant for a day with anything you need help with. It’s not until you are paying someone money, to help make your life easier, do you realize the challenges of finding someone good, eager. You will learn how time-consuming and difficult it is to train them or communicate to them how you want a task done to your liking and specifications. You essentially want a mini-you. If only there could be two of you! Something that seems so simple and obvious to you, second nature even, will be hard to translate to someone else.

Remember in grade school when you got that assignment to write directions or an essay explaining how to do something step by step, like making a sandwich or whatever you chose? You had to start by saying, “First, open the bag of bread. Second, pull out two slices, not that yucky first end piece, then cut off the crusts. Third, don't forget to close the bread bag or the bread gets stale. Then, get the peanut butter and jelly jars....” You had to explain every little detail as if you were instructing a 5 year old so it taught you to be mindful of sequential order and specifics. Be your boss for a day is the grown up version of that.

What do I have in mind? Hire someone to do any of the following:

Wash, dry, fold and put away your laundry
Clean your room or apartment
Run to the store for you to grocery shop
Help you find a restaurant
Wash your car

The amount of critical thinking, judging what’s important/not, and understanding that people are not mind readers will blow your mind away. Your expectations and what you envision will be vastly different from what is delivered, and not because they are dumb or didn’t pay attention or anything else. It’s more, without specific instruction and constantly changing variables, everyone’s idea of X is different.

For example, let’s take something as basic as getting help finding a restaurant. This is what typically happens.

You ask someone to help you find a restaurant for a birthday celebration and you say something along the lines of something special, but not too expensive and nearby. When your assistant for the day goes off and does some research and comes back with 3 options, you will probably negate them for the following reasons:

-You don’t like X cuisine they chose.
-It’s either too casual or too inexpensive.
-You’ve already been there so it’s not special enough.
-You hate that restaurant.
-The place is too loud or too trendy.
-Parking is difficult or $20 for valet.
-You’ve never heard of the place or it doesn’t have a good reputation.
-The place is closed on Mondays or X day.
-They don’t have a great dessert menu and you can’t bring your own cake.
-You know X goes there a lot and don’t want to run into them.

As someone’s boss, you have to walk the fine line of not coming across as being scatter brained, picky, or indecisive. You have to provide the right amount of encouragement, praise, and feedback so your assistant has high morale and gets what you need in as little as time as possible. You have to be aware how long certain tasks take although to you it seems rather simple.

Practicing this exercise will make you a better assistant, but it will also make you a better boss to your interns, 2nd assistants, and other colleagues. People make the best decision they could at the time with the information they had THEN. However, life is constantly changing and what you know now, most often, wasn’t knowable earlier.

The Realities of Job Hunting As A High Level Executive Assistant

If you are an admin assistant who loves your career, you probably envision yourself becoming an assistant to a VP, Director and hopefully a President, CEO, CFO, or Chairman at some point in your career. Perhaps you are already a 2nd or 3rd assistant to someone high profile and you want to run the office of your executive as you get promoted through the years. Here are some tips as your career progresses that will affect how you job hunt.

1. The lower-level admin you are the more jobs there are.

When you first graduate college or switch careers to be an admin assistant you'll find a lot of admin roles out there. Whether you are a department assistant or work for a smaller company, you will be able to find a job more easily. Once you are a high-level assistant there are really only 3-5 people you can work for at any given company because you are overqualified for anything else. Those jobs support the President, CEO, CTO, CFO, and Chairman. However, at some companies, the CEO and Chairman are the same person.

2. Your job hunt will take a lot longer.

The higher up you go on the ladder of admin roles, the longer your job hunt will take. Although your title is Executive Assistant, in reality, your job hunt will reflect that of an executive in years of experience, salary, and specialty. As as Fortune 500 C-Level Executive Assistant, you will find that your job search will probably take a minimum of 6 months. It may be longer if you are picky about your commute, field, direct boss, and if you are willing to relocate or not. It comes down to an issue of timing and a numbers game.

3. Don't get sidetracked from your life and career goals.

As you become more established and learn to network well and brand yourself through social media, you'll find that headhunters and recruiters will call you in hopes of poaching you. Even if you aren't that aggressive in marketing yourself while you have a job, it's likely that previous companies that interviewed you or HR people that you knew will remember you and keep you in their database. They will revisit their files and notes and reach out to you as jobs become available. Your former colleagues will also think of you. You'll find yourself getting calls and emails a couple of times a year if not once a month. While their offers can be enticing, make sure it aligns with your life and career goals. Think of the big picture of the life and career you want and stick with it. Penelope Trunk says the sign of a great career is having great opportunities, and saying no. Don't get sidetracked by working for that Fortune 100 company, the huge pay raise for a company whose product you don't believe in, or moving to a part of the country where you can't stand the weather.

4. Job hunt with focus.

As you are job hunting, think hard about if you want to temp, freelance, do contract work, temp-to-hire, or direct hire roles only and under which circumstance. You will find yourself having to juggle an interview schedule and working to continue networking or to not get bored. Between averaging 5-9 calls a week, doing 30 min -1 hour phone screeners, commuting 2-3 hours roundtrip to interviews all over the city, and getting requests to work for 2-3 weeks at a time or when someone goes on maternity leave, you will have to prioritize your time amidst competing requests. You'll have to debate which is more important - earning and saving money, interviewing, fun creative work and challenging projects, networking, taking time off to regroup, taking a vacation, focusing on family life, or other goals you have for yourself. In this economy, because jobs are scarce, you will have to know by what date you hope to have a job and plan for it wisely.

5. Make a decision.

At some point, you have to call the job hunt quits and make a decision. There will always be that one last call that comes in that will start an entire interview process all over again with a new company. Or you may tell yourself if you just waited until the new fiscal year, after the holidays, or some other meaningful event when more companies would be hiring, you might land your dream job then. While it's good to wait for the right role instead of taking the first job offered to you, it's not worth blowing through your emergency savings or racking up credit card debt for the perfect job.

6. Take really good notes and save them.

As you interview it goes without saying that you should be taking notes in the interview. This comes in handy for three reasons. 1) As you interview around town and get passed over for opportunities, you'll find that after a month or two, the recruiter will call you back to see if you are still interested because the first candidate was not a fit. When recruiters have to hire someone ASAP little things get overlooked - such as the person doesn't know how to use a MAC. Or they were great, but not a right personality match for their boss. 2) Sometimes hiring timelines are 2-3 months long when companies have the luxury of taking as long as they need to fill a role. When you take notes and get the 2nd follow up call a month later, you can refer to those notes to freshen up and still see if you are interested in working there among the current companies you are talking to. 3) Because the entertainment industry or any field is really quite small, in 3-5 years when you are interested in learning more or getting promoted, you can refer to your notes from previous interviews about your HR contact, who else you know that works there, the corporate culture, annual review feedback process, work/life balance, pay range, benefits package, or any other information.

7. Be prepared to have 5-10 meetings for one job.

When you are a high level executive assistant, you will be asked to meet with many different colleagues and HR people. It is not uncommon for you to also meet with some of the people you met with already for a 2nd time. You may do a 30 min phone interview with 3 different HR folks and then will be asked to meet with at least one of them before meeting an array of assistants, senior level management, and your actual boss. And because executives are constantly traveling for weeks at a time, it may take a month or three just to finally meet everyone. This is part of the reason why your job hunt will take so long.

8. Have a large stock of thank you cards, stamps, and pre-printed address labels at all times.

Since you are meeting with so many people, you'll go through a box of thank you cards in no time. And if you come to know the name of the receptionist, security guard or anyone else who helps your job interview process send them a thank you card too. Sometimes, they will indirectly have a say about you as a candidate. It might be a subtle comment after you leave on how nice you were. You can buy inexpensive yet great thank you cards at anywhere from Target to TJ Maxx.

9. Be honest.

Often, you will be asked where you are in your job hunt, how close you are to getting a job offer, and where else or what other roles you are interviewing for. They are asking to gauge the situation and how much time they have to consider you as a front runner. It is wise to be honest, overall, but also be realistic and avoid going into specific details since things always change. Everyone is busy. Just because you have a business trip coming up or other pressing issues or diverging interests, it is highly unlikely they will re-route their travel or business schedule to accommodate your life. If companies really like you, even if you take another job offer, they will always be open to considering you again.

10. Be open.

Although it's great to know who you are and what you are looking for, be open to possibilities. Instead of saying no to an opportunity or believing you know something, ask for more information and details. When you say no, all communication stops. If you say you're willing to negotiate for the right role, at least talks can continue. You can say no at any point of the interviewing and hiring process, but there is only one time to say yes, at that's at the very beginning.