r/ExecutiveAssistants

I have made it to the second round for an Executive Assistant position. I would be working alongside an Office Manager/Marketer. She's having the second interview and suggested it would be great to chat in person and show me around. I am of two minds. I would like to meet her and the office to get a feel for them. On the other hand, I would like to wait until the final group interview to meet and greet to avoid getting emotionally involved too soon.

Is there some conventional wisdom on whether it is ideal to interview in person vs virtually?

I’ve been the EA to the CEO for years now and I can’t believe I’m asking such a basic question, but I am curious and it’s always good to reflect and adjust to operational needs!

This is *only for internal meetings* : if you’re scheduling a meeting who gets a calendar invite? For me, it’s only people who need to attend the meeting. I don’t add assistants to the invite if their presences are not required. I think this keeps a better record of meeting attendance, better confidentiality (especially if it’s a Teams meeting and Teams oh so helpfully sends out that recap after the meeting is ended), and makes accounting for logistics like conference room size and material handouts easier. I also think it keeps things consistent: no why was VP Betty’s assistant included, but not VP Maggie?

I know that due to my roles at our organization that if someone sends me an invite, I’m showing up. I also don’t want to start individualizing this process

So what say you, wise EAs across the land?

It's been a long time since I realized this isn't the career for me, and I'm planning to go back to school next year for the career I want. In the meantime, the plan was to stay in my current role, save money, keep high quality work, and just keep on keeping on...but I don't think I physically can anymore.

I've been dealing with chronic pain, fatigue, brain fog, and other strange symptoms since November. I'm working with a medical team to try to figure out what's going on, but it's a slow process. I'm out of medical and annual leave, thanks to the number of appointments and the days it's taken me out. Stress makes it worse, which obviously doesn't help, but I'm feeling myself get weaker and weaker as time goes on. My job description includes event planning and execution, and I'm almost always on my own for those. Even setting up and cleaning up is exhausting and painful. It hurts to type, it hurts to drive my commute, I struggle to find the right words in conversations. I'm producing the same quality and quantity of work as previous years, but at the expense of myself.

I'm not allowed to work remote, my boss gets annoyed when I call out, and I'm running myself into the ground. This can't be helping. But I have no other skills that I can find a job that supports my family in my area. I feel stuck and trapped and idk what to do.

Let me just say, I don't drink coffee which is probably my first fault. I'm in an office where EVERYONE has their specific coffee flavors that they like. At first, I was getting yelled at for not ordering enough coffee, so I ordered a few boxes that were empty THEN they yell at me because I over ordered the WRONG coffee...
So I go to our rep and he didn't have the particular flavor that a lot of people drink. Now they're mad at me because the vendor brought a substitute that no one will drink.... fml.

I need some career advice from fellow EAs because I genuinely don’t know what I would do if both of these options come off!

I’ve worked in EA/executive support roles for nearly 10 years and currently work as an EA supporting a C-suite exec. I’m on a good wage for my age and genuinely really like my current role, exec and team so I haven’t been looking to leave because I’m unhappy.

I was recently approached internally about an EA vacancy in our CEO Office. I applied because I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to get CEO Office experience and continue moving my career more towards Business Management/strategic support. Longer term I’d like to keep progressing down that route rather than stay purely EA.

I told my current manager about it and he was really supportive. However, since then we’ve had conversations about what I want from my career and he has now said he’s going to speak to HR and Finance about potentially promoting me to Senior Business Manager within my current function to keep me.

From what we’ve discussed, the Senior BM role would involve line management of the other EA’s as well as broader responsibility within the function with a pay band jump.

Interestingly, the hiring manager for the CEO Office role is a Senior Business Manager, so if the promotion happened I’d essentially be moving to the same level as the person I would otherwise be reporting to.

Obviously none of this is guaranteed yet and I’m continuing with the CEO Office process regardless.
But hypothetically, if you had both options, what would you choose?

1. CEO Office – lateral move but opportunity to work directly within the CEO Office, gain exposure across the whole organisation and add CEO-level experience to my CV.

2. Senior Business Manager in my current function – promotion, likely salary increase, line management of the other EA’s in my function, more senior responsibility and the opportunity to stay with an exec/team I really enjoy working with.

My head is honestly scrambled because I originally thought the CEO Office role was the obvious next step for my career, but I absolutely wasn’t expecting my current team to potentially offer me this.

Would love to know what other EAs would do!

You can still do everything you can but once something goes wrong everything you've done is wrong.

CEO wanted to do a luncheon with one of his big time clients. Date and venue was CEO's choice so sent invite.

Client accepted the invite. So sent the usual stuff like venue map and menu info. Even asked if client has any allergies or dietary restrictions. No response. Follow-up four times but still none.

Day of luncheon came but turns out client has a seafood allergy. For context the venue was a known seafood restaurant. Even if you didn't know about it, the name of the restaurant and the menu selections would have given the hint.

Had to change venue super last minute in a somewhat inconvenient location. Luncheon itself went as planned.

But the CEO, upon returning, angrily claimed how I should have been more careful with making sure of allergy. Despite showing how much I've done to follow-up, CEO still insisted I could have done more.

I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but needs must. I provide support and diary management to two execs and have always set up their meetings from my calendar (so that I'm the meeting organizer), partly to allow me to make changes as necessary, and partly so that any accepts/declines come through to me and don't jam up their mailboxes. I was recently on unexpected medical leave, and whilst I was away, there were a few instances of meetings that had to be moved, and ended up having to be cancelled and rebooked, because my exec wasn't the organizer. Is there a way to get around this? My line manager is now suggesting that I set up all the meetings from the execs' calendar so that they can change things if I'm not there, but that means I'd be unable to manage the diary properly. There may be a setting that I'm just not aware of, and if so, please share it with me. Any other suggestions would be most welcome.

Hey y’all, I have reason to believe my firm is hiring for my role, and honestly, I’m pretty sad and bummed about it.

I’ve been with the firm for two years, and I haven’t received any bad performance reviews or any straightforward feedback that would make me think my job is at risk. That said, I also don’t necessarily think this is the kind of firm that would give you a lot of warning or have a very direct conversation about something like this.

At this point, it seems pretty obvious, and I’m wondering if I should get ahead of it. Would you ask your boss directly about it if you had reason to believe they were hiring for your position? Part of me thinks I should ask, not in an accusatory way, but more along the lines of: Wanting to check in, is there anything I should be doing differently? Is there anything I need to improve? What can I do to make sure I’m the person they want to keep?

I’d much rather have an honest conversation and know where I stand than sit here and speculate. And if there are things I need to improve, I’d genuinely like the opportunity to work on them.

I also can’t help feeling hurt that they may have started looking externally instead of talking to me first. I’ve been here for two years and would have appreciated the chance to understand what wasn’t working and try to fix it.

What would you do? Would you ask directly and try to get ahead of it, or would you wait and see what happens? Thank you. 🙏

Edit to add: We’re a pretty small firm, only 14 people, so this isn’t your standard large corporate environment where there might be a lot of layers around something like this.

Has anyone had success using copilot to read your executives inboxes and calendars that you have delegate access? Any tips or tricks you use?
So far having no success!!

I mostly need to vent, but I’m also curious how other people would read this situation because something about the timeline just doesn’t pass the sniff test for me.
I’m an administrative professional supporting two senior executives at a mid-sized company. Let’s call them Executive A and Executive B.
Executive A has always been a difficult personality to support. Constantly changing expectations, major FOMO if they aren’t included in something, everything is urgent, and other people somehow end up responsible when things don’t go according to plan.
Executive B, on the other hand, has generally been reasonable to work with, and I’ve had a good relationship with them.
Several months ago, things with Executive A started getting uncomfortable. There seemed to be resentment over the amount of time/attention I was giving Executive B.
Behind closed doors, I started getting comments along the lines of, “What about me?”, “Why aren’t you doing this for me?”, and “I’m also your boss.”
I was repeatedly told that I needed to respond to emails faster, anticipate everything they might need and essentially have answers immediately at the top of my head. There were also comments suggesting that I was barely doing administrative/EA work for them, despite the fact that I was balancing the needs of two senior executives.
What made it particularly uncomfortable was how different the behavior was when other people were around. In front of others: pleasant and professional. One-on-one: demeaning, territorial and increasingly difficult.
Eventually, I went to HR.
I didn’t go in with vague complaints. I had kept receipts. I provided specific examples, timelines and dates of comments and conversations, and explained why I was uncomfortable with the way I was being spoken to and treated.
What happened next really bothered me.
Rather than feeling like my complaint was handled discreetly, Executive A was made aware of it and then approached me wanting to “sit down and have a conversation.”
I had not expected to suddenly be put in the position of discussing my HR complaint directly with the person I had complained about.
I tried to move forward professionally and continued doing my job.
Here’s where things start feeling strange.
My mid-year review with Executive B was good. I wasn’t put on notice that my job was in jeopardy, nor was I told there were serious performance concerns that could lead to formal performance management.
Fast-forward a few months and, seemingly out of nowhere, Executive B tells me my performance is no longer meeting expectations.
I’m now on what is essentially a PIP — although management is being very careful not to actually call it a PIP. Instead, it’s being described as a “framework” designed to help me succeed.
The feedback is that I’m not doing things quickly enough, I need to be more proactive, and they “know I’m capable of more.”
Could some of that feedback be legitimate? Absolutely. I’m not pretending I’m a flawless employee. If there are things I need to improve, I’ll own them.
But I cannot get past the sequence of events:
I raise concerns to HR about Executive A’s treatment of me → Executive A learns about the complaint → my mid-year review with Executive B is fine → a few months later, my performance is suddenly formally under scrutiny → Executive B puts me on what is effectively a PIP.
Maybe those things are completely unrelated. But something about it feels off.
It also feels like I’m now in a position where every small mistake, misunderstanding or delay is being documented or treated as evidence of a larger performance problem, when previously those same types of everyday issues never seemed particularly significant.
Another part that has made this incredibly uncomfortable is that it’s a relatively small office where people know each other’s business. I’ve become aware that other administrative staff seem to know about what’s happening with me, including people I would never have personally discussed it with.
I obviously can’t know exactly what HR has or hasn’t shared, or how people found out, but it has left me feeling exposed. Something I thought I was raising privately now feels like it has become office knowledge, and the whole environment has become uncomfortable to work in.
At this point, I’m documenting everything, doing exactly what is being asked of me, keeping my head down and quietly preparing myself for the possibility that this is ultimately a managed exit.
Has anyone experienced something similar after making an HR complaint?
Did you actually survive the PIP/performance process and stay with the company? Or once things reached this stage, was the writing basically already on the wall?
I’d especially love to hear from people in HR, executive support, or corporate environments who have seen how these situations play out from the inside.
Am I reading too much into the timing, or would this sequence of events raise red flags for you too?

Hi everyone, just checking in to see how the NYC Executive Assistant job market is right now.

I’m freaking out a little because it looks like I’m going to be laid off. To make matters worse, my company is hiring for essentially my role, but at around 40% less than what I currently make. I’m trying not to spiral, but I’m definitely nervous about having to get back into the job market.

I genuinely like what I do and have built a career as an EA, but my resume has a lot of short-lived positions at this point. Most of them weren’t really by choice, a lot came from company acquisitions, mergers, restructurings, etc., but I’m exhausted from having to explain all of the movement and then start the job search process over again.

Honestly, I’m frustrated and emotional about it. I could cry just thinking about having to go through interviews, applications, explaining my resume, and starting from scratch again.

For those currently hiring or job searching in NYC: how is the EA market right now?

I’m typically looking in the $120K–$130K range, ideally for a role where I can actually settle in and grow rather than having another short stint due to circumstances outside my control. Would really appreciate any insight, encouragement, or reality checks from people currently in the NYC EA market. Thank you

I've been an EA for about 7 years and I think I'm over it. I know a certain amount of handholding is sometimes part of this job but I am done carrying everyone else through their workday and being expected to get my own work done at the same time.

I'm supposed to support one exec, who already depends on me so much I'm starting to resent it, but recently I've also been asked to do things for 2 people my exec manages. These people could not find their way out of a paper bag with a chainsaw.

If I don't tell them their own work needs to be done, it doesn't get done, and then everyone is mad at me for not telling them it needs to be done. If I don't show them how to do something, they won't even try. Like how did you all make it this far?? I have only worked here for 8 months so what were you doing before I was here?? Sitting in your office and staring into space with the lights off?? My boss will not run interference for me or back me at all and I think we're done here.

I have a savings goal I'm trying to reach, which I'm hoping to hit around Christmas, and then I'm out. My motto until then is: I am not god and the magic shop is not across the street.

I’ve had the last couple of months to reflect on my career and current job. Just found out a contractor was hired to cover for an additional executive and to take some duties off my plate, since the EA team & myself have voiced our concerns of being stretched thin. This contractor was given a higher title than me.
For context: I am a senior administrative assistant. I have communicated for the last two years my interest in progressing and integrating in other departments. The workload has increased tremendously but, the recognition has not.
market.

I believe this is my im done moment …

Male EA to a male CEO. Someone went to HR and told them that they think we are dating. Funny part is that he is not even close to my type.

Yes, we are very close and have done some dinners and have some shared outside of work interests. But most of those involved other people with us.

Anyone else go through a similar situation?

I've been an EA for several years now, but I recently switched to a completely different industry than the one I'm used to. Still getting my bearings and learning the business as I'm totally unfamiliar with all of it.

I manage multiple execs, they're all extremely busy. One of their direct reports has latched onto me and will instant message me about 20 times a day at a minimum and sends tons of emails to me/my execs, even before/after hours. She seems to treat EVERYTHING as an emergency and pressures me to get answers immediately.

Since I haven't been in my position even 6 months yet, I've been answering her IMs and emails to the best of my ability and trying to help out because I know that she is genuinely short staffed and needs assistance. I'm also trying my best to balance my exec's time and not pester them for every little question this person has.

Like every day for the past 2 weeks she has asked if so-and-so exec will attend xyz meeting. The meeting is on the calendar and the exec has accepted it. Obviously they will probably attend! I've confirmed with the exec the first time she asked, but I don't want to annoy my execs with silly little questions like this anymore. It's not productive, and as far as I know they haven't had any attendance issues so idk where the anxiety is coming from.

Another example that really bothered me is that one of my executives had a personal emergency recently and needed to be out of office on short notice. Exec let everyone know what was going on, everyone seemed supportive and wished him well and understood that things needed to pause for a minute. But this person IM'ed me because she "needed" to get a meeting with the executive, it was important supposedly and she really pressured me to get "just 15 minutes." It left a bad taste in my mouth that not even a personal emergency would cause this person to stop and think about what she's really asking for. If I tell her "no, exec is booked today sorry, I can get you time next week" she doesn't always accept that answer. She will say "what about just 5 minutes at 5pm?? I can do a late-night call too, what about this evening???"

It's getting to the point where I feel stressed any time I hear the IM ping. So, experienced EAs who have dealt with this type before, what strategies have you employed to reduce this kind of behavior?

Anyone have any connections with agencies seeking personal assistants? NYC

Throwaway for obvious reasons. But just had to share with a group that would get it.

My exec, number two at a global company, announced today they are leaving. I’ve been aware for a couple of weeks, processed my feels and was now just excited to be done with the secret.

Department told at x time. Company informed 20 mins later.

Not even an hour after than I run into one of their directs in the elevator. There’s no how are you? How are you processing? This narcissistic mfer goes straight into “I’m really excited to have your dedicated support now”. I make & maintain eye contact with utter silence. Truly have no idea where they got the idea that would be happening. They backtrack and bring up my boss’s number two who was named as interim today, and say “well clearly shared with them”.

Meanwhile, CEO has given an exemption for me to leave with the boss and discussions have started on the other side. I am thrilled. But I sooooooo wanted to rub it in the directs face… and I can’t. So telling you lovelies instead.

The light at the end of tunnel is getting so big!!!!!!!!

But also: I’ve never followed an exec. For those that have- what do I need to be on the lookout for? I am very familiar with the new company and am not worried about that aspect of things.

I’m curious what other EAs do for meeting notes because this has been one of the most tiring parts of my workflow lately.

Short meetings are fine, but once a call runs for an hour+ and people are jumping between topics, decisions, dates, and random follow-ups, I can’t write everything down and still pay attention to what’s actually being said.

I’ve tried typing live notes, keeping a running doc, and cleaning everything up afterward, but I always feel like I either miss something in the moment or spend way too long reconstructing the meeting later.

Do you use any apps, recording tools, or AI note takers for this? Mainly looking for something that makes long meetings easier to review and helps with action items afterward.

My exec wants me to set up alerts so I can track his flights and have a new one for him should something happen (delays, cancelled flights).

Every other exec I've had would just use the alerts sent out by airlines and then text me to either find a new flight or decide to wait it out. Mine doesnt want to deal with alerts sent to him by Navan or Delta. And just expects me to track his flights....but then tell him when his flight is delayed.

I've never tracked my exec's travel this diligently. And I dont understand the difference between me texting him and Navan/Delta texting him.

Just curious if others have had this experience. Like...Im going to set up a flight alert, but it just seems like he wants a little too much hand holding. Is this normal?

Tis the season again. Last year we did a mentalist during cocktails at our holiday party. Any suggestions on other entertainment? It’s a small sit down dinner of 30 so would be best to have entertainment during cocktail hour when everyone is up and mingling. This is in NYC.