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Attention bosses: Today is Administrative Professionals Day. Do we have to spell out what that means?

It means today is the day that bosses — and office workers supported by an admin — say thank you to the hard working administrative assistants, clerks, receptionists, support staff, and other administrative professionals for the countless tasks they handle day in and day out. Read the rest of this entry »

Salaries for administrative professionals, stagnant during the worst of the Great Recession, have begun inching up. The 2011BenchmarkPro survey results from Compdata Surveys found executive assistants earn an average base rate of $51,600 per year. That’s up from $50,200 in 2010. Administrative assistants are earning $36,400 per year, reflecting a 2% increase since 2010. The salary for executive secretaries has increased from $45,000 in 2010 to $46,100 in 2011, a 2.4% increase. Those are national averages. Salaries differ significantly by geography and industry. For instance, executive assistants in utilities earn an average $57,200, while those in hospitality earn the least at $45,500. Comdata Surveys

Image: graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You walk into the office kitchen or break room with cup in hand only to find that someone took the last drop and didn’t make a new pot. Annoying, isn’t it? Or how about that mysterious supply cabinet that seems to swallow pens the way a dryer does socks? They go someone, but there’s never a note telling you to order more. We could go on; everyone has their own story to tell. Admins, though, bear the brunt of inconsiderate office mates, since they’re the ones who do the ordering, make the copies, answer the phone, sort the mail, and a million other things. Here are some tips to promote office harmony from an office etiquette pro. AEAP

Not that long ago, all the buzz in healthcare was about the nursing shortage. Hospitals, skilled care facilities, medical offices, not to mention those other providers we don’t generally think of — insurers and public health centers among them; it seems everyone was hunting nurses.

Today, the nursing shortage has eased, though jobs – both permanent and temporary – for experienced nurses with special skills still remain. Elsewhere in healthcare, the demand is as high as ever. As a whole, the industry is expanding rapidly with demand for professionals and skilled workers (and even entry-level) approaching record levels. Read the rest of this entry »

America’s Best Companies To Work For have never been easy to work for. Everyone wants to work for them.

Google, which garnered the #1 spot on the just released Fortune list of 100 best companies, gets something like 3,000 applications — a day. But in the three months leading up to the release of the list, Google advertised 1,130 openings. Collectively, the top 10 companies on the list only had 2,133 jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

“Volunteer for the (fill in your office event) committee? But I’m just the temp!” Forget that kind of thinking if you want to stand out and be remembered. Whether you’re hoping for a permanent offer or want to be the first one considered for other temp jobs, get involved with your co-workers, says HR consultant and recruitment expert Laurie Ruettimann. You want them to think of you as a colleague and teammate. If you have solid ideas on how to improve a job, suggest them to your boss. The Wall Street Journal.

Office temping is one of the tried and true ways workers have of earning a paycheck while proving their value to a company. It’s also a great way to test out a company or a career without committing for the long term. But don’t make the mistake of assuming just anyone can walk into an administrative support job. Today’s employers expect even entry-level workers to have all the basic office skills. Often, advanced knowledge of software like Word, Excel and PowerPoint is required. Equally important are a person’s people skills. And, says a report from Monster, so-called “soft skills” may be the deciding factor in who gets the job. Monster

Just because you’re a reader of this blog, we have a special gift for you: An extra day next month to catch up on things.

OK, OK. Caught us. It’s leap year, so everyone will get that extra day. But hey, if you’d rather use it for fun, then stop doing stuff that only offers the illusion of working.

You know what we’re talking about. Things like checking your email every time that message icon pops up, or dropping what you’re doing to respond. Or actually reading every article on a Reply All list. Read the rest of this entry »

CareerBuilder says to expect companies to step up their hiring of temporary workers this quarter. With 35% of companies running leaner than before the recession, and business picking up, CareerBuilder predicts that 27% of all businesses will hire temporary workers between now and the end of March. And of those hiring temporary workers, 35% expect to make them permanent. The biggest demand will be for occupational and physical therapists, speech pathologists, administrative assistants, network engineers and Java and .net developers, and marketing assistants, among others. CareerBuilder.

Starting salaries for office professionals in the U.S. and Canada will be going up next year as the hiring climate for experienced workers becomes more competitive and the time it takes to fill jobs lengthens.

That’s what Robert Half International says. The company ought to know, it’s been surveying businesses on their hiring and comp plans for 60 years, incorporating what it learns  with it’s own client and placement data and making the information public in a series of salary guides. It’s administrative support staffing salary guide is in its 17th year. Read the rest of this entry »