Administrative Assistant's Update

5 Administrative Assistant's UPDATE Tips on being interview-ready By Jennifer Lewington When a job recruiter calls out of the blue, are you interview-ready? The answer depends on your level of preparation, according to Katherine Margard, an experienced administrative assistant with a major health organization in Ohio. Over a 30- year career, she has honed several tools at her disposal – an up-to-date resumé, an informed cover letter and a well- developed professional network – to figure out if she and the prospec - tive employer are a good fit for each other. "The fact that I have been in the workforce for as long as I have, there is a certain amount of confidence that comes with wisdom and experience," says Margard, executive assistant to the executive vice president and chief operating officer at OhioHealth, a major healthcare organization in Columbus, Ohio. "You are going to land somewhere so make sure you are the right fit for them and they are the right fit for you." When the boss moves on In 2015, she was a senior EA to a top official at The Ohio State University when her boss left for a top job at another university in another state. Amid that uncertainty, she unexpect - edly received a call from a recruiter asking about her interest in returning to OhioHealth as a senior EA. She im- mediately asked: "Can I send you my resumé?" Margard, a presenter at the Admin- istrative Professionals Conference in Toronto last May, says she keeps an up-to-date resumé in two versions: a long one for her own use and a short one to send to a recruiter. "It is about investing time in you- self," she says, of the value of keep- ing a resumé current. "There might be a larger chunk of time invested when you are first starting out... if you are committed to doing it on a regular basis, then [do it] quarterly." Resume is multi-purpose document Even without a job interview pending, the updated resumé serves as docu- mentation for the annual performance review. "It's about tracking your own accomplishments," says Margard. "You are building accountability to yourself: What have I done? Did I do the webinar I planned to do?" She says preparation also applies to drafting a persuasive cover letter to a prospective employer. "This is the opportunity to say why I would be good for this specific job and how I would fit the potential employer's needs." For the job at OhioHealth, she conducted research on healthcare in general and on her potential future boss in particular. Scoping the potential boss "I knew the kinds of things an execu - tive would need – somebody to be pro-active and who has core skills," she says. But through her networks and other sources, she knew her future boss was active in the commu- nity, including fundraising. In her cover letter, Margard cited her past experience as a fundraiser for a private school. "As part of the interview process, I was able to high- light to him that this is an extra skill I bring that would help him," she says. For the actual interview – one round with a vice-president of human resources at OhioHealth and a final round with her future boss – Margard prepared for two kinds of questions: those she could expect to receive and those she posed herself. For example, in the interview she asked about the goals of her prospec - tive boss because she wanted to present herself as someone with the relevant skills to facilitate his success. "If I am not helping him fulfill his accountabilities then I am not doing my job," she says. In managing the boss's calendar, for example, Margard says "if I don't know what his pri- orities are then I don't know which meetings to make sure that I set or that I accept on his behalf." In late 2015, six weeks after the initial approach from a recruiter, Margard landed her current job at OhioHealth. She credits preparation for her success. "It showed them that I was serious about the job and being the very best quality candidate I could be," she says. © Thinglass Katherine Margard

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