Introduction

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Tray: Hello. Today we are talking about top skills required for an EA. You're listening to your hosts, I'm Tray Durrant.

Emily: And I’m Emily Bain.

Tray: So, top skills for an EA, what a big subject! It’s kind of hard to know where to begin, so let's try and bucket it into sort of a few groupings, shall we? And just have a think, well, what's most important?

The Most Important Skill for an EA to Have

Emily: Well, this is a really interesting one because, obviously, this is what we do for a living. We work alongside EAs and PAs on a daily basis, so for us they're all just quite obvious adjectives to describe somebody, but actually when you drill down, when I actually then looked in the air, I thought, my goodness me, these people are so talented.

The different words or requirements that you need in EA, they are so broad. You know, I talked to the team this morning and said; ‘come on, throw me some words’, and they're all the same words that we hear all the time.

There's the flexibility, attention to detail, organisational skills, resilience, the list goes on and on and on. But, like you said, if we break those down, I think the most obvious and crucial skill for a good EA is organisational skills.

Tray: So we're talking about soft skills now aren’t we, to begin with - all those, you know, inherent, or learnt, competencies and how they come into play. I mean it's something we talk a lot about, these competencies in terms of requirements, and as you say, organisation is possibly the number one.

Top Executive Assistant Soft Skills: Learned or Inherent?

Tray: But these soft skills, all of the adjectives that one can think of that are brilliant and requisite for an EA, do you think they can be learned? Do you think these qualities, that these skills are required, are inherent in people that become successful EAs? What do you think?

Emily: I think some aspects of the role can be learned. For example, getting away from the classics that we just described, I think a really good EA now has a ‘black book’ and that is certainly something that you can work on, make better, and improve on whether that's a Word document or an Excel document.

To have a black book and a “go to” of anything, down to the best travel agent or the best restaurant that I know I can get a booking in for a table for my boss, that you can definitely improve on and build up over time.

Tray: That's a good one because obviously that's just learned and experienced over time, that comes with that black book.

Emily: Yes, exactly. That’s time. That’s building a network. That's everything that draws into it.

Tray: Yeah. So I suppose network is a key skill required there, yeah.

Emily: Yes, exactly, because you're only gonna learn from your peers on that type of thing.

I think resilience perhaps is something that you have, but again, you can build on some EAs that we work with who have fallen into perhaps careers, where they might have had more, slightly more demanding bosses certainly build on their resilience. Some people can deflect something quite easily, and therefore their resilience just builds and builds and builds.

But I think, gosh, I don't know, I think, you're either efficient or you’re not. I don't know if that's something you're just, well, your makeup.

Tray: Well I think you’re making a good point in terms of as people get more experienced then these skills do develop.

I think if people are at sort of a grassroots level and just out of university or or college it’s those skills that are apparent, not just even for EAs, but for all of the roles we recruit for. I’m thinking of communication skills, listening skills, developing your writing skills, teamworking, and problem solving.

They're all good soft skills to start with for any sort of role, aren't they? Let alone an EA that you'll build on as you get more senior.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Of course.

Tray: I think a lot of it starts from communication skills, in the broadest sense, in terms of networking and building relationships and troubleshooting problems in teams and that sort of stuff.

Emily: Mm, mm, absolutely, I’ve put that down here. Problem solving. And I think actually the PAs of old going back 20-25 years, had skills like classic diary management, minute taking, you know, moving away from soft skills.

And actually nowadays I'd say that the EA has evolved to become a bit more of a sort of strategic assistant, alongside your boss. At the more senior level anyway, adding a lot more value. Some of our EAs are sort of researching prior to meetings and following up behind as well.

So I think the role has evolved over time. However, I still think the nuts and bolts of a really, really good EA are discretion, organisation, resilience, emotional intelligence, discretion, efficiency, and reading a room. You gotta read your boss!

Tray: Yeah, yep. Discretion is so important you said it twice haha!

Top Executive Assistant Hard Skills:

Tray: So, what about technical skills? I mean, we talked a lot about the soft skills required. What sort of technical skills, does that matter as much? Can they just be learned a bit more readily?

Emily: Well, I think you can learn these technical skills. I think digital organisation is definitely one you can learn - you know, apps that can help you, just understanding how your boss works, being really proficient on Outlook and any other packages like that.

Yes, I think you can learn that. I think project management as well as event planning are things that a lot of colleagues can help with and many companies will teach you all of that, to sit nicely along with the soft skills as well.

Tray: Yeah. As you develop your experience, these skills develop too. I think that being ‘tech curious’ - for want of a better phrase - is integral to being an EA in terms of always developing what current trends there are that can help you in your role, that can make you more efficient, and make you more adept at the soft skills that we've talked about.

It can also make you better at bringing those into the workplace. For these reasons, I think developing a natural curiosity mindset to improve the technical side of your job as well as the sort of soft skills development side of your role is crucial.

Emily: Mm, so constantly learning on the role?

Tray: Yeah, exactly.

Emily: And learning from your peers and sharing ideas with them?

Tray: Yeah. I mean, we're gonna not talk too much today about tech skills because we're going to be doing another podcast on AI and its implementation into your role and how that can help you. So you’ll have to listen out for that one. That's to come shortly.

But I think it is that, that piece around curiosity to develop and learn new skill sets, technically that can help you in your role and keep you up to date and current.

Emily: Yeah. And I think just sort of one final thing which I know I keep talking about, but the resilience side of this. The amount of EAs I meet who spend hours putting together the best travel itinerary or making sure their diary is the most efficient it can be, and then “ohh everything changes” and they've just gotta pull themselves up and go, “OK. I did spend 3 hours sorting that itinerary out, but no worries. I'm gonna redo the whole thing.” And doing it with a smile on your face, and a sense of humour and having the same sort of gumption and energy to do it as you did it the first time round.

Tray: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Great. I hope that's been useful for you today. Thanks very much. Thanks Emily.

Emily: Thanks, Tray.

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