Looking for admin jobs...advice?

ianpwilliams

Ashles wrote: »

Where are you based? If London then Office Angels, Devonshire, Williams Lea, Taylor Burlington etc are all agencies that have work.
They work that you go in, tell them what admin skills/packages you have and then they will probably give you a test. After that they try to fnd you temporary jobs, many of which can turn into full time jobs (mine did - I started as a temp and now head the international team doing dtp for the company I work for).

I'm in Liverpool. I've found an Office Angels so far. So I would arrange to go in and see them (in a suit) with my various CV's, and ask them what they can do to help me find admin work?

gibson123

Ian your posts tell me a lot about you.

1. You are very focused on media, computers and are very creative.
2. Admin is not your career goal or your focus.
3. You have few admin skills

I take on administrators all the time, I am looking for an administrator to be able to use a range of packages, to purchase, to be good on phones and with customers, able to organise diaries, keep the filing up to date, make sure the office is fully stocked and support my managers and staff to get on with their jobs. The adminstrator is the MOST IMPORTANT person in my office, without him/her we are all headless chickens. Attributes are organised, assertive, good attention to detail and a completer finisher. I do not want my administrator to leave ever!

I probably would not take your application further, and yes I do short-list by qualification, if you have a admin qualification, (VQ, HND, NC etc.) you are in my first pile. if I have more that 15 of these sorry the others don't get looked at. I get about 200 applications for each post.

ianpwilliams

I did ask about admin courses at local colleges, but they said "why would you want to do a basic admin qualification when you've already got a degree?", and "would you really be comfortable doing an admin course with what would predominantly be 16-20 year olds?". Which kind of put me off.

I honestly believe I have the required skills from my employment and academia, and I believe that I would be very useful in most offices, because of my varied skills and abilities, my professionalism, and my adaptability and willingness to learn. But it looks like the only way might be to try and find voluntary admin work, which seems to be hard to do.

heretolearn_2

Do-it.org is a great site to find volunteer places.

My local hospital has a list of volunteer admin places as long as your arm, which I find quite a disgusting idea to be honest, but would be perfect for adding a bit of recent experience to your CV. I doubt they do much real work, when I've been in there it's more greeting patients and putting their paperwork in the right slot, but it sounds good to be doing hospital admin regardless!

Ashles

ianpwilliams wrote: »

I'm in Liverpool. I've found an Office Angels so far. So I would arrange to go in and see them (in a suit) with my various CV's, and ask them what they can do to help me find admin work?

Yes. You would only need one CV for them though - a fairly neutral one just listing all your jobs and the roles you performed in each position. With all that info they may highlight one or two of your jobs that would be more applicable to the type of work they would have.

NB - Office Angels are generally more short term temp coverage so would be less likely to turn into a longer term position, but they do have them. Try other agencies too.

What admin skills would you say you have?
PowerPoint?
Excel?
Word?
Other?

If so would you describe your abilities in each as basic, intermediary or advanced?

And don't worry about the age too much. In London most of my team is 35+

ianpwilliams

I like to think that my admin skills are pretty good. The office work (old I know, but I believe still the same), included:

Project planning and scheduling (creating my own deadlines for my programming projects, getting the deadlines approved by my boss, and then working to them)

Arranging and hosting meetings via Microsoft Outlook

Working with Word, Excel, typing out letters in Word, managing and arranging data in Excel etc

Producing company reports for directors

Typing up documents, photocopying, filling etc

My more recent academia included things like:

Leading groups of people, or working in teams on projects (communication)

Delivering Powerpoint presentations

Working with Word, Excel, typing out letters in Word, managing and arranging data in Excel etc

There's a lot more experience apart from that. I would say my Office skills are probably Intermediate to Advanced. In Excel I can go as advanced as formulas and graphs/tables, but not the really advanced stuff (although I could certainly learn it)

I also have a pretty good knowledge of PC software (from IT support) and hardware (from academia and personal life), so I can usually solve the most common software and hardware problems.

So if I can make some agencies aware of my abilities then hopefully I can find something. Might still have to look at voluntary to begin with though.

bargainbetty

Ian,

I am also a senior administration manager, and I have to echo the comments about needing a focused admin person to work with and delegate tasks to. They need an extensive range of skills, the best and brightest of which is the ability to be given a task and move with it. I don't expect to babysit someone, I expect them to ask the questions they need (of me or of others) and get on with it.

I'm sorry to be so harsh, and this is both helpful and critical, but you mention that you have only found Office Angels. Google search 'recruitment agencies Liverpool'. Second result.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=recruitment+agencies+liverpool&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Helpful: There are some more agencies for you to try....

Critical: If I said to my admin assistant that we were thinking of recruiting and needed some agency numbers, I'd expect her to manage that task with ease.

I wish you luck, but maybe this isn't your best career path.

ianpwilliams

I did find more than that, I only mentioned one because it was a very quick search. I'm actually very good at researching. I had to be to get my degree.

ianpwilliams

Thanks for the tips anyway. I'll get visiting those agencies, and try to find some volunteer work.

Ashles

Good luck with the search, and with decent Office skills there should be a good amount of opportunities. Office may not be exciting, but it's the nuts and bolts of so many office jobs.
(Hint - Learn pivot tables in Excel - fiddly to start with but so worth it in the end)