Corporate News

Help Wanted: Office Manager/Administration Advertisment

By Fuery Inc. Recruiting ⋅ July 9, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

About the Company:

We’re a small up-and-coming Technology Consulting firm that does software, support, and documentation. Our small team is young, hardworking, and brilliant. We’re looking for some fresh talent to round out our service offerings, provide administrative support, and help us make sure we get everything done. Ideally, you’ll grow with us, actively learning new skills as we expand the business.

The position requires “wearing all the hats”. If you function best in an environment with a lot of structure and you do the same sort of work consistently, then this probably isn’t a good fit. If, however, you thrive on task juggling, get excited about figuring out solutions to interesting problems, learning how to use new tools, and occasionally find yourself reading Wikipedia for fun, then you’ll love working with us.

In other words, we’ll ask a lot of you, but you’ll learn more, faster, than anywhere else. If you like filing TPS Reports, then this is not the place for you!

Here’s what we need right now (if you’re comfortable with any three of these, we’d like to talk to you):

• Project coordination. We juggle 8-10 active projects (and growing) at any one time, and with dozens of tasks each, it’s a serious amount of pressure to make sure nothing gets lost. Your job is to take the hassle of task management on and allow our geeks to focus on what they do best. We don’t care how you do it – handwritten lists, a case of post-it notes, your email inbox, specialized software, or your amazing photographic memory. There will literally be 100 things on the collective task list at any one time, and we’ll throw more at you using every means possible (shoulder tap, paper note, email, voice mail, text message). If you can also work backwards from client-facing deadlines to intelligently organize tasks, we’ll buy you a pony. This is probably 60-90 minutes of upkeep every day.
• The paper-pushing of small business management. Bookkeeping, payroll, expenses, invoicing, collections, etc. The owner has been doing this for quite some time, but it’d be much better for the business if he was out schmoozing with clients rather than trying to decipher tax forms. If you can take this off of his plate and actually get our payroll checks cut on time (ahem), the entire office will cater to your every whim. This is probably 4-8 hours a week; more at first while you reconcile the boss’ mess, then down to half a day weekly for upkeep.
• Document creation. Half our business is synthesizing technical concepts into readable form for non-techies. You will be expected to help out with this. Yes, even office staff has a billable target. This means your grammar has to be top-notch and you’ll be resizing images in Photoshop, drawing simple diagrams in Visio, and creating tables using Wiki markup. We’ll show you plenty of tips and tricks, but if you’re afraid to get your hands dirty, you’ll end up feeling more like a gopher and less like a contributor. And that just sucks for everyone.
• Vendor Liaison. Collection companies. Web Hosting companies. Dell. AT&T. The parking lot across the street. Office Depot. Costco. Handle the relationships, make sure we’re getting the best price, make sure they get paid on time, and make sure all of us as employees (including the boss) aren’t using resources foolishly.
• Recruiting. Could you write an ad like this?
• You’ll have your choice on which area you’d like to focus as we grow and add more staff. So if you imagine yourself making a career in the fields of accounting, management, or project planning, this is a good sandbox to work in, because you’ll get the chance to experiment in a coached environment while learning peripheral aspects of running a business. On the other hand, if you simply enjoy supporting smart people, that’s fine too.
• Leadership & Analytical Skills: Establishing policies & procedures. You will be challenged on them by our engineers, so you need to have the analysis handled and be quick on the draw.
• Documentation Skills: Geeks are smart. They’ll notice errors when you dictate policies and procedures. And if you don’t make rational sense, they won’t respect you.
• Technical Skills: Understand the language of the business. This includes jargon related to software development, project management, and various science fiction references. If you can talk geek, we’ll forgive you for the occasional run-on. Our clients will notice, too, and it will incur trust. 
• Bookkeeping Skills: Depreciation on buildings? Net 15? Adjustable rates? Quickbooks? 1040s? 1099s? W-2s? You don’t have to be a CPA, but you should have a general impression on what this all means and have the ability to fill in the blanks where needed through research and/or reference materials.
• Research Skills: See subtleties in the bookkeeping requirements.
• Attention to detail: We can forgive our geeks for occasionally forgetting to get back to a customer. It’s your job to hound them until they do. Oh, and if you screw up the books, none of us get to eat, so there’s that, too.