London has an economy that is largely focused on financial services. This means that many of the best careers in our city are in Banks, hedge funds, pension companies, insurance complete and other similar companies. This impacts the career path of London Executive Assistants and PAs.
In essence, Executive Assistants and PAs in London can find their best salary packages within financial services. Therefore, this means that you need to amend your skills set to suit working for and with financial professionals.
You do not need to know how to do their jobs, but taking up a short Financial course and perhaps keeping up to date with major things that are happening in the world of finance will ensure that you keep up with any commonly used terminology. This will ensure that you understand the general meaning of key meetings and are not left out of discussions.
Financial Data
You will also be dealing with more financial data and more documents that are compiled in Excel. Too many PAs in finance do not have good Excel skills and this can really be an embarrassment when all of your colleagues can use Excel efficiently. Therefore, you should aim to increase your Excel skills to an advanced level.
This can be done by taking Excel Courses, however, it is important that there is a focus on the key functions that a financial professional needs. All too many Excel Courses are delivered by tutors or online in a generic manner and provide limited exposure to the key functions needed for this industry.
Financial Services Jobs for an Executive Assistant
Therefore, you need to learn keyboard shortcuts, formula functions (Lookups, Vlookups, Index Match and much more), Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts, Chart Wizard and how to link to other Microsoft Office programmes. These are some of the key areas required, but also you need to be able to format and conditionally format your spreadsheet to a professional level. Advanced data sorting and filtering is also important and more advanced formulas (subtotalling, sumif, sumproduct and more) are needed to ensure that you are not let down when it comes to your Excel skills.
If you are looking to get a PA career in the higher paying industry in London the best thing to do is take an Excel course that will include the functions above. Also, if you are already working in the industry and want to strengthen these skills, you can also improve these areas with a course. Here are the details of some Excel courses that are specifically designed for people in your situation.