Suzanne’s profile, « An Office Manager, is everyone’s mom»
EXPRESS ID : Suzanne, 26 years old, has been working for Selligent since June 2018
Suzanne is a machine gun and has contagious enthusiasm. As she herself says: “I bounce back and I figure things out quickly”. At the age of 26, she has already lived in Germany, in Greece and Spain and has worked in four different companies. Her mission statement: learn and discover, over and over again. Her strength: networking! Suzanne spends her time on Linkedin, where her Office Manager community keeps growing.
From Real Estate to Office Management
Suzanne got involved in Office Management through coincidence, after her education in real estate and then events management. At the end of 2016, she took over a friend’s job, Office Manager at Street communication and fell in love with the profession. Not only did her social skills and proactivity do wonders, but the little schizophrenic side of the profession, boded well with her hyperactivity.
After this first successful experience, she joined a start-up in full swing. But despite the fact that she got along famously with her collaborators, the process was tedious to implement, and Suzanne decided to leave.
In June 2018, she joined Selligent, a relational marketing automation platform…and she sees herself staying there for a while. Even though she is restless, Suzanne is ready to look at things from the long term viewpoint in thiscompany, as she loves the ambience and there are many possibilities to get promoted within the company. Suzanne likes the fact that the former Office Manager became the Marketing director, who sees herself managing a department in the future!
Super woman of everyday life
What motivates Suzanne most in her job, is being useful and finding solutions for situations that are a priori intractable. She loves juggling between the administrative dimension of the profession, helping with recruitment and billing and the dimension related to Happiness Management, buying goodies, not to mention organizing team buildings.
According to Suzanne, an Office Manager is everyone’s mom and focal point, capable of providing quick answers to every question which is asked. Plus, as there is no degree which exists, Suzanne considers that the Office Manager makes the job what it is. For every atmosphere in the company and every personality, realities can be therefore very different.
Handle everything and handle it well
Suzanne’s experience showed her that an Office Manager’s profession requires a certain number of essential qualities. First of all resourcefulness and good resistance to stress, because one has to always go fishing for info and keep coming out of the comfort zone. Not to mention, curiosity and interest in people. In short: one must “know how to handle everything and handle it well, with a smile.
Even though, it’s not her case, Suzanne has noticed that many of her Office Manager colleagues have the feeling of lacking recognition. She underlines that it’s an outsider’s profession, without any direct hierarchy. “You don’t realize it, but nobody congratulates you for your job”, she concludes. Due to which, it’s possible to feel isolated.
Even though she admits not getting enough sleep and always having many things in mind, Suzanne would like to start a family in five years.
