Georgette Calang – Financial Planning Assistant

Hello, my name is Georgette Calang. I am a college undergraduate who attended Central Mindanao University and was taking up a Bachelor of Arts major in History before I took a leave of absence as my parents were not able to sustain my education at the time. While I am driven to finish my degree, it currently isn’t a priority for now, as my parents need me to lend a hand with their business financially.

For over 3 years, my first job was as a customer service representative for a BPO company. The tasks I was exposed to back then on a daily basis were to resolve clients’ concerns. Even though we had canned responses at our disposal to address their problems, our ability to think critically would be required when dealing with issues that would necessitate applying outside of policy guidelines, especially in the later half of my tenure, where I was working from home. There would be instances wherein we’d have to exhaust our resources, given that our support and managers wouldn’t be able to help us with infrequent concerns. That particular job allowed me to improve on a lot of the good attributes I have now, namely my patience, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

My next work experience was working remotely as a Financial Planning Assistant for a financial firm based in Australia. We were initially trained and educated about superannuations and the importance of financial planners being able to meet their clients before deadlines. Our main tasks would consist of preparing meeting forms for annual and half-yearly meetings, which were the general tasks that financial planners would assign us. I, however, landed a niche role, serving as an executive assistant. After a thorough screening conducted by our company, they thought that I’d be fit for the role with my years of experience communicating directly with clients.

Part of my daily task involves liaising with my bosses and their clients’ schedules, ensuring everything is logged on the company’s calendar, and making sure meeting rooms and car parks for meeting attendees are arranged for in-person consultations and online meeting links generated for virtual ones. It was during this time that I could definitely say that I’ve become disciplined and noticed positive changes regarding my time management skills, as it’s different from the work that I had as customer support. I had to come up with my own system to submit deliverables on time without compromising the quality of my work.

Through my experience working remotely, I can work well with little to no supervision but also work harmoniously with a team. I try to be mindful of my colleagues’ respective tasks, so for instances wherein I’d have to reach out to clarify something that likely won’t be covered during training, my best practice has always been to gather all my queries along with their responses in one place so I would know how to handle rare issues moving forward.

I proactively ask for feedback on skills I need to work on to make room for new skills that will benefit me and employers who’ll trust my abilities. I like being someone my friends can depend on, so I think it’s why it has become my nature to have colleagues who have confidence in relying on me.

For a copy of Georgette’s resume please click here.