Anyone working as a Receptionist OR HR Assistant?

[sunshineandstarsgirl]

Asking because these two are my ideal jobs that I am applying for. I would like to know some things related to Microsoft Office - how much Excel/Word/Powerpoint should I know to work as a receptionist or an HR Assistant. I am asking because I bought courses from Udemy - beginner to advanced courses for Excel, Word and Powerpoint. I am focusing on Excel now. I completed the beginner stage and got a certificate. I am now doing Intermediate Excel. As I was practising today, I noticed that I forgot some things I learned in the Excel beginner stage. I talked to my friend who works in Administration and he said unless you start working, you won't remember Excel. Is this true?
I was thinking today should I keep practising Beginner and Intermediate stages of Word, Excel and Powerpoint and IGNORE the Advanced stage for now? What is the point of practising all the stages if I will just end up forgetting what I learn?

Sorry, I'm no help but I'm following as that's the type of work I''m applying for despite not holding that role for around 18 years!
Bringing up kids in the meantime.
Currently having no luck 😥

I wouldn't bother with PowerPoint to be honest, I doubt receptionists or HR assistants have much use for it.

It is true that you will forget parts of Word and Excel if you don;t use them regularly. I've just done a Microsoft course for Excel and I've forgotten half of what it taught me already, despite the fact that I use Excel on a daily basis - just not some of the the bits I was taught (no use for them).

Thank you for replying. If you don't mind me asking - what do you work as?

Is the following course from Alison better or should I stick with Udemy?

https://alison.com/course/microsoft-word-for-administrative-professionals

As with everything, you really need to do it a few times/get more practice "in context" for it to stick. Like imagine you read through a recipe but until you make the thing you won't really know how it all goes together and how it'll turn it. If you make it lots of times, eventually you wont need to follow the recipe anymore because you'll remember it or feel confident doing it your own way. But if you only make it every so often, you'll always have to pull out the recipe.

Basically, you can only really practice what is required for the job you will be doing. Especially because every company has their own systems so likely you'll have to learn to use a new software and only use Microsoft Office for some tasks. No harm in continuing with the courses you've already paid for and once you start doing the work, what you've learnt will make more sense in practice. You'll also remember some of the things you've learnt too.

I talked to my friend who works in Administration and he said unless you start working, you won't remember Excel. Is this true

Well that depends on your aptitude, some people find things easier than others. You could always use Excel at home to manage your budget or another task that will be useful to you to keep your hand in.

I'd concentrate on Word and Excel as that's what will be used most.

Do you have experience of Access and Teams? The latter especially for taking calls and forwarding them on will probably be a big part of a receptionists job, although it's easy enough to pick up.

Access is also widely used to manage client and internal data so could also be a big part of the job.

Perhaps see if there's some videos online if you've not used these.

I would focus on Excel, Word and Outlook. I studied at Pitmans (many years ago). It was good but expensive. Teams would also be useful but it’s relatively easy to pick up (in my opinion).

When I joined the workforce in the 1990s pretty much everyone asked for Word or WordPerfect with a bit of Excel and PowerPoint and maybe a smattering of Access but now there are so many applications it's hard to keep up (even though some employers expect the moon on a stick in my experience, and the ones who've never used the package or, God forbid, done the task themselves, are the worst).

Every job is different and trends change so it might help you to look at a few adverts on Indeed, say, or LinkedIn to see what employers are asking for now. What a grounding in MS Office will give you is the skill to pick up other packages, but you may find a job where they want you to use Slack or Asana, Zoom instead of Teams, or, in the NHS, say, Oracle, Integra, any one of a few patient record systems, or specialised reception or telephonic software. Some jobs want a bit of Canva and increasingly I'm seeing jobs ask for packages that are so obscure even my friends in IT haven't heard of them.

What sector are you looking in?

I work in HR systems, well one system particularly at the moment but my last job I worked across the HR system as a whole. I agree with what the others have said - it'll be the basics and anything you can't remember, you can easily find online or by using Help. You could try a bit of problem solving by say replicating something you find online, or like someone said earlier, do your budget in Excel. This will get you much more familiar with programs.

If it's a big organisation you'll likely need to use specific HR systems anyway and they will train you on that so being generally IT literate is useful.

Happy to answer any questions you might have about HR but I've only worked in a couple of really big organisations so might not be that much use.

Any sector.

I work in University admin at the moment but have worked in various different sectors over the years.

As others have said, you only tend to remember the parts of the packages that you actually use day to day. I learned many different functions and formulas in my Excel course but as I don't use them often, probably can't remember how to do them now but I DO remember that a certain thing is possible and so a quick Google reminds me how to do it!

PowerPoint is useful if you prepare presentations but in my experience, someone higher up the food chain would be doing that rather than a receptionist or HR assistant.

EDIT: Sorry, I've just realised that I've quoted my own post rather than your reply 😂

Agree with PP's saying you could be required to use a variety of different software and cloud-based PM/CRM's. I despise Microsoft anything after 30 years in admin/business management roles, it's the work of the devil 😂
Currently in an HR role that thankfully uses Google Suite and Airtable PM by preference of the MD.
Of course it's handy to brush up on your IT skills, any certificates on your CV will be beneficial so I wouldn't discourage it, but keep an eye on all possibilities, rather than just Office/365.

First off I just wanted to say well done you for being proactive like this, really impressive! It all depends on the organisation to be honest. Out receptionists use excel a lot as they input a lot of essential daily data which then creates a report our admin team use entering the monthly figure instead if the daily iyswim. They don’t really however use word as such.

😊 Thank you.