Looking for an Office Manager to Grow Old With
I am so excited to post this! Its time for us to get just a bit bigger. At this point, Peter & I need to be able to focus on growing the business and are looking for someone to join the team and support us in day-to-day administration. I am posting this listing in all the usual spots. If you are reading it here, then you know how to get a hold of us.
Office Manager / Administrator
The Opportunity
We are seeking an Office Manager / Administrator who has a passion for organization and structure, the ability to work effectively with all personalities and an extremely positive attitude. This person is driven, disciplined and will be an effective coordinator of a long-distance, fast-moving team (with a big smile) with a virtual office. We are happy to train the right person with the right attitude.
The Company
Shane&Peter Inc. is a small, rapidly growing software & design company located in Santa Cruz, California. At S&P, we develop custom solutions for some of the world’s largest companies, government institutions and smaller growing organizations. We pride ourselves on our ability to bridge people and technology and to bring the passion and dedication of an entrepreneur to every project.
Location
Work from home (or the nearest coffee shop like we tend to). You must be willing to drive to Santa Cruz a minimum of once per week (more or less often depending on circumstances).
Responsibilities
● Support the CEO & CTO in the daily activities of the business / assist the group in all administrative needs
● Maintain and track the company calendar and deadlines
● Manage invoicing, general business paperwork, data entry & internal customer database
● Screen potential contractors
● Support project managers & sales with proposals and project scheduling
● Make sure team members are equipped to do their tasks, are happy and well taken care of administratively.
Personal Competencies
● Self-motivated, detail-oriented, strong organizational skills, with a methodical approach to all tasks
● Excellent verbal communication and interpersonal skills
● Ability to prioritize own workload and work to exacting deadlines
● Learns quickly
● Ability to maintain strict confidentiality
● Desire to constantly learn about the industry and how to nurture a growing company
● Superior phone etiquette for dealing with customers and contractors
Required Knowledge and Experience
● Strong knowledge of MS Office is required
● Must be very comfortable using online business tools
● Strong written and grammar skills
● Comfortable working with a geographically distributed team
Additional Experience a Plus
● 2-3 years office management or similar experience
● QuickBooks AP & AR
● Experience in HR, staff management
● Experience in managing office operations in a customer-focused Internet / project based service firm with multi-location structure
● Experience in budgeting, forecasting and analysis
● Experience successfully working remotely
Compensation
Pay will commensurate with background, qualifications and experience. This is a contract position.
Hi Shane and Peter! I just emailed my resume for consideration. Congratulations on the growth of your company. This is a kind of environment I would like to sink my teeth into.
Evangeline English
Hi Shane and Peter,
What an exciting company and a wonderful opportunity. I emailed my resume through your Craigslist posting. I think my experience and personality would be a great fit for your company.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Warm regards,
Samantha Altomare
Can’t wait to (virtually) meet with you guys!
Good morning, Shane and Peter. I emailed my resume to you earlier this morning after reviewing your website. What a great website! It’s very unique and shows personality, which is important to me. I wish you all the best in your continued growth!
D. L.
Your ad indicates that the VOM is a “contract” position. I was wondering if you would be treating this worker as an Independent contractor? If that is the case, some of the elements in the job description are questionable with relation to IC / Employee classification guidelines:
“…work to exacting deadlines”
“We are happy to train the right person ”
“Support the CEO & CTO in the daily activities “
Hi Janice,
Good note. We have been having exactly that dialog with both our lawyer and CPA. The conclusion – we are cleared to go with contractor status, but we all agree there is the potential of skirting the line. The status will need to be reconsidered once we have a little working history to provide perspective. We are learning what this position is as we are interviewing. This will be our first non-technical person and it’s an exploration. If you read our blog (see Do You Have an Employee in Contractor’s Clothing), this is an issue dear to our hearts. I’m right there alongside you.
Long term, the right person may end up an employee (maybe even 3-6 months out). If they really are that helpful, we will want to be the focus of all their attention. If part time really solves our problem and they have other customers they provide a similar service to, then contract may be the right solution. Since the key differentiator is control of their time, that is the key in our decision making process.
In response to your specific quotes:
“…work to exacting deadlinesâ€
We work for our clients to exacting deadlines. They do not define neither how we do the work nor when we do it, but they sure do insist it gets done on an agreed time line. That deadline more often than not is yesterday. In the interviews so far, we have told each candidate “I don’t care when you work, where you work or even how you do it, as long as the quality is high and everything on the task list is done on time.” That fits pretty well into the contractor space.
“We are happy to train the right person â€
Now this is a good point and requires clarification. I’m the first to admit that this is a potential chink in the contractor choice. It’s a question of approach and we are thinking about it quite a bit. We are requiring they use their own tools and their own space. We require the candidate know more than we do about 90% of their tasks. That’s said, no one knows neither our business nor our clients better than we do. My hope is to find someone with a strong skill base, but who can help in other areas. We are a small business and the more hats you take from our head, the more helpful that is. If you happen to be a phenomenal organizer, office manager, team coordinator, h.r. person, but have never done books (and you are willing to help us out there until we can grow some more – small business curse), then we will gladly accept the support and offer any training we can. I will need to check with my lawyer and CPA on exactly where that puts us. I would guess the difference is who is paying for the training. If they pay for it from an outside source, then contractor status is maintained. If we pay for it, things become iffy.
“Support the CEO & CTO in the daily activities”
It seems to me the issue is the word daily. You are definitely correct. It’s a good think we are not requiring daily work. I explained during our last interview that we are a service/project based company. Our workload goes in cycles. Some periods we (the technical teams & project managers) work 18 hour days and sometimes (like the next two weeks) things calm down a bit and we have the freedom to spend time with family and only work 2 hour days. That said, many of the tasks that need to be done are not part of the project cycle, making us think that the person we work with will have a fairly consistent basis of hours to work should they choose to. The possibility of daily work and daily support is there, and if that is truly the case, then employment begins to make sense. Since we have never had an office manager / administrator, we don’t really know what to expect or how it will work out.
In essence. We think about this enormously, but its a learning lesson for us. That is why we are blogging about it and we appreciate the feedback so much.
Thanks Janice. Feel free to follow up with more questions, either online or offline.
-S
Hi Shane
I exactly have the same qualifications as you require except for one drawback i live in Pakistan. But i m feeling very sorry for not being able to work for you this would have so exciting. Any ways
Best Regards
Haseena