The Professional Secretarial Career.
The secretarial job market remains in a state of rude good health despite the recession and demand for these highly skilled staff, the “backbone of the office,” is stronger than for other roles such administrative assistants and clerks.
Such demand is probably a reflection of the high standards demanded by employers as they strive to obtain maximum productivity from every employee.
And as secretaries tend to be highly trained, they have the ability to deliver measurable value to a business.
Achieving these standards is not a matter of luck but rather investment in secretary courses and related training programmes and it is fair to say that the secretary is often the most highly trained of all the administrative staff.
He or she will have taken skill specific secretary courses to learn typing, shorthand, audio transcription and technical subjects such as minute-taking and letter layout.
In addition, it will have been necessary to learn about the information technology used in the job, such as computer studies and software packages including Microsoft’s Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Access.
Without structured secretary courses, it would be very difficult to pick up sufficient knowledge, skill and competence to deliver work to the standard required.
And it would be even harder to become a medical secretary, legal secretary, paralegal or executive pa without having taken a number of secretary courses.
For most students embarking on secretarial careers, Pitman Training is the first port of call.
Sir Isaac Pitman launched his world-renowned shorthand method in 1837 and the Pitman name remains the byword for secretary courses to this day.
Nowadays, every Pitman Training centre seeks to replicate an office environment rather than a college or institute and they are leaders in self-paced education for the office skills sector.
Shilpa Wymer, Principal of the Pitman Training centres in London’s High Holborn and Notting Hill and Central Manchester claims that this focus on the study environment linked with the learning methodology form the basis for the continuing professional respect enjoyed by Pitman trained secretaries.
“There is no doubt that the amount of practical study time and the reflection of what it is really like to be a high level secretary in London, as well as the coursework we demand results in a skill set and an attitude that says ‘I’m not just trained, I’m Pitman trained.’”
Recruiters and employers seem to agree, as anyone listing secretary courses from Pitman Training on their CV’s seems to have a definite competitive advantage when it comes to getting great jobs.
The continuing recession in the UK economy has made the need for professional studies even greater as downsizing has meant that secretaries face an increasingly large workload, handling tasks previously performed by colleagues whose roles have been made redundant.
Those who have the knowledge to harness technology to perform these extra duties and who have learned to organise the resources available to them can continue to provide invaluable business support to their bosses.
And at the same time they can manage the stress that additional responsibility brings.
In many ways, the recession has shown that cream rises to the top and the best way to be part of the cream is to ensure that you have the education and skills to shine.
