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School and Career Surprises: Tips From People on the Job

Career: "I was extremely surprised at how much interaction is required of me. I thought it was going to be mostly data-entry for my job, but I interact with the citizens of my county way more than I thought I'd have to- meaning I need to be considerate and understanding of their problems very often."

Career: "I am surprised that medical secretaries need to know so much information. There is a lot to customer service and filling out paper work. You also need to be on your best behavior and always watch what your doing."

Career: "I thought I could do something with a psychology degree after graduating. Luckily, I was able to find a secretarial job working as a secretary while still in college. I like my job because I can be very sociable but I don't like it because it does not pay nearly as much as I need."

Career: "I was surprised to find that being a good secretary means you will have to do a lot more work that is not even in your scope of practice. You will run errands, tell callers your boss is not in when they are really standing in your face. You may even have to take the fall for a mistake that you know is not your fault just to keep your job. Your people skills also has to be on point."

Best & Worst Things About This Career

"I am a people person and love the contact that I have with so many different people during the day. Each call that I answer is different and sometimes very interesting. But those same calls can become overwhelming and too many calls can make the day very stressful. The worst part of my job is trying to locate a physician to handle a hospital consult. It seems they disappear whenever you need them."

"I love being busy all of the time with many varied functions. As a people person, I enjoy most of the constant interaction with the staff, students and parents. I hate that the other secretary has very few normal functions and spends most of her time socializing! Plus she works an extra hour a day. There are great inequities in the job."

Tips for Succeeding in This Career

"I don't think anyone starts out looking for a position as a medical office receptionist; it's no one's life ambition but it's the kind of thing that happens. As I have trained many for the position with no experience I have always thought that if they only had some education in medical terminology or phone etiquette it would be so helpful."

"It's a job that most of us just fall into. The atmosphere is very nice and many mothers ask how to get into the school department. You have to keep checking the job openings and sometimes start at something else. I was a school assistant, doing lunch supervision, recess monitoring and just grunt work for the teachers for nine years!"