Her Story
About Beth
I've been a career executive assistant for close to 30 years now, supporting officers in the C-suite. I started when my husband at the time was in the military, so we moved around a lot, and I began as an office assistant slash receptionist. I didn't even realize this was a career option, but I was good at organizing and managing calendars, taking care of people, and just being 10 steps ahead of everyone. I rose in the ranks, especially in my last company where I was there for almost 20 years. I started as a staff assistant and moved my way up to executive assistant. I formed an admin forum at that company to help raise awareness and help other admins within the company, especially those just starting out in their careers, in getting training and learning on the job. What I love about this job is that every day is different. I can move from task to task very quickly and not lose focus. Supporting the CFO of a company this large can be challenging, but I love that every day is different. I do all those tasks that any executive assistant would do - managing his calendar, travel, meeting planning, event planning, expenses, ordering. His day could be perfectly planned out, as would mine, and then our CEO comes down and needs to talk to him for 4 hours, and that means I have to immediately juggle every meeting he had and notify everybody and move everything. I believe an executive assistant is a project manager of a million different projects. I think what makes me good at my job is I like it, I really do enjoy it.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Beth
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The COO that I supported for nearly 18 years gave me advice that I'll never forget. I'm kind of a Type A and tend to be a perfectionist, and I get so frustrated with myself when something isn't perfect or something goes wrong. He noticed that in me early on and told me to stop trying to be a perfectionist, because perfection does not exist. We are human, we are going to make mistakes. Instead, let's strive for excellence, because we can all be excellent every single day. I framed that and put it on my desk, because to me, that says it all. We're gonna make mistakes, obviously we're human. And if we try to be perfect, all we're gonna do is disappoint ourselves and others. So let's just strive for excellence instead.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
First of all, strive for excellence instead of perfection. Find a mentor, for sure. I wish I'd had one when I started out. Constantly be learning and discovering, and don't be afraid to ask others for help, because you can always learn from someone else. Someone may know how to do something that you've been doing the same way for 10 years, and they have a smarter, easier way to do it, and then you're like, oh, why didn't I think of that? Get in a networking group of different admins, find a mentor, and then just constantly be learning and discovering new ways to work smarter, not harder.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now, the huge challenge that I think can be very concerning to executive assistants is that a lot of really large organizations, including a national accounting firm and others, have eliminated all of their executive assistant positions and are taking them offshore to $5 an hour admins. First of all, if you're not in the office with your executive, that's not going to work. Offshoring them to people and thinking they're going to be able to support you and be excellent, it's not gonna work. A lot of companies are trying to eliminate the role and offshore it to save money, and to me, that's gonna bite them in the end. I don't think it's going to be worth it in the long run. Some people are also concerned with AI, but if you embrace AI and use it as a tool and not think of it as something that's going to replace you, you'll be fine. AI can never, in my mind, replace a human, because you have to have the EQ and the emotional part of being an executive assistant that AI does not and will not have. So just embrace AI, but the big challenge is being concerned with your role being eliminated. Hopefully that's not something we're going to be seeing more of, hopefully that's just a few small examples.
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