Personal Assistant Qualification Recommendations

monkey84

Thanks for your advice, everyone. Think I'll focus more on applying directly to organisations and highlighting my transferrable skills rather than obtaining a qualification that I may not need.

KeeperOfTheMarsh

Hi - I'm currently a PA.

I tend to go by the example of looking at what is required for the ideal next step and working towards attaining that. If a great job requires a certain qualification, you could think about working towards it.

Coincidentally, I started at the same time as a colleague who was working on the Pitman PA Diploma. I cannot honestly say that she has proven to have any more useful technical skills or specific expertise than I do.

[Deleted User]

A lot of PA/EA jobs now require a degree for new entrants but it sounds like you've been doing the job but for some reason have a different title or a lower grade title like admin assistant? Be sure that you are actually doing a PA/EA job first because they involve a lot more nowadays than the traditional job hence the degree requirement. Would suggest that instead of Pitman you do Microsoft courses (much cheaper). If you want a starter qualification get the ECDL which is generally free at adult education centres. The advanced course is expensive though. However, the education centres basically use ECDL books available from Amazon for both the general course and the advanced one. You could then just pay to take the exam at a centre near you. Can't remember the exact title of the books but I'll look them up if want them. As someone else said Project Management is very handy for PAs these days. Most PAs need proven organisational skills rather than typing skills. I'd skip the Reed courses as whilst cheap you'll be spending money and they won't really help you. Pitman is good but expensive (you'll learn to type and you'll learn to use Microsoft software) and as someone else mentioned it might get you in the door but it's stuff you can easily learn cheaper via ECDL or Microsoft. The other thing Pitman do offer on the EA courses is some basic accounting but you'd be better to do that in a separate course. Great qualification to have and generally better paid. Make sure your grammar and spelling are excellent and that you understand what Business English is.

Jox

I spoke with a company based in Old Street, London today who are looking for Personal Assistants / Executive Assistants, full time and part time, have a look at their website https://www.fyxer.co/careers and get in touch with them to find about what roles they have, they seem to be a very interesting company