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"Scoring that dream job? That merits a happy dance. Photograph by Jake Chessum. Dresses, Milly. Stylist: Maggie Mann. What do CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, J.Crew president and executive creative director Jenna Lyons, and PMK-BNC publicity honcho Cindi Berger (publicist for Mariah Carey and Simon Cowell) have in common? They all started out as lowly assistants at the companies they now help run. Not bad, ladies! I started in the media world as an assistant too. But here&amp;amp;#8217;s the truth: I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t a very good one at first. In college, I&amp;amp;#8217;d gotten all A&amp;amp;#8217;s, but in my receptionist gig, I got yelled at for not stapling correctly. Just doing my job every day felt as if I&amp;amp;#8217;d been asked to assemble a complex machine&amp;amp;#8212;and all the instructions were in hieroglyphics! But sure enough, I got better at my job. And I got better at the one that came after that and the one after that. Before I knew it, I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t just a girl at a desk; I was a woman with a career. I learned a lot along the way. In fact, the skills I picked up as an assistant are the backbone of everything I do. My coworker Ashley, for example, taught me how to write professional emails, what to say when my boss blamed me for something that wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t my fault, and when to ask questions during meetings. She also inspired me to take big risks: Her encouragement helped me write my book, Save the Assistants, an advice manual for all the disgruntled coffee-getters and copy-makers out there. No matter where you are in your career&amp;amp;#8212;starting out, starting over, looking to move up&amp;amp;#8212;you deserve help too, especially in our current economic climate, in which you can find yourself in an entry-level job at any age. I know lots of women who started over in new careers in their thirties or haven&amp;amp;#8217;t gotten promoted as quickly as they&amp;amp;#8217;d like. And any news outlet will tell you how hard it is for young people today to find entry-level jobs and keep them. (A 2011 Pew Research Center survey, for instance, found that since 2010, the share of young adults 18 to 24 who are currently employed&amp;amp;#8212;54 percent&amp;amp;#8212;is the lowest since the government began collecting this data, in 1948.) On these pages, meet some impressively accomplished women who managed to climb their way to the top with hard work and, yes, a few painful mistakes. Here are their lessons for you. Find out Erin Burnett, Julie Greenwald, Mandana Dayani, and Audie Cornish&amp;amp;#8217;s best career advice &amp;amp;#187; Photograph: Jimi Celeste/ Patrickmcmullan.com/ sipapress. &amp;amp;#8220;Don&amp;amp;#8217;t just learn your job&amp;amp;#8212;learn what others do too.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Erin Burnett, 35, anchor of CNN&amp;amp;#8217;s Erin Burnett OutFront &amp;amp;#8220;I started out as Willow Bay&amp;amp;#8217;s assistant on CNN&amp;amp;#8217;s Moneyline, and when she&amp;amp;#8217;d leave New York to go to Los Angeles for business, the executive producer would ask me to write for the show. I still remember one line I wrote&amp;amp;#8212;it was a transition from a piece on Cisco Systems, a technology company, into a story on Frito-Lay: &amp;amp;#8216;And now a story about a different kind of chip, of the edible sort&amp;amp;#8230;.&amp;amp;#8217; It was so cheesy, but I kept practicing, and I was eventually promoted to be a writer for the show. Even though I ended up on the other side of the camera, writing and producing is still very much a part of who I am. Get to know all sides of the business you&amp;amp;#8217;re in. It helps you relate to and collaborate better with the people around you.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226; Photograph: Courtesy of Greenwald &amp;amp;#8220;Don&amp;amp;#8217;t accept &amp;amp;#8216;no&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Julie Greenwald, 41, chairman and COO of Atlantic Records Group &amp;amp;#8220;When I was working as an assistant at Def Jam Records, it was my job to get Flavor Flav&amp;amp;#8217;s passport from him in order to get him a visa for his tour in Europe. But it was his only ID, so he wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t give it up. I begged, and he would not part with it. When I finally got it away from him&amp;amp;#8212;I convinced him that he wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t be able to tour without it&amp;amp;#8212;there was some problem holding up his visa. Then I learned an employee at the consulate loved Def Jam, so I bribed him with a Def Jam jacket. It was the hottest commodity I had! As an assistant there, you had to do what you had to do. You couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t come back with a no. You can always come up with a way to solve the problem and get the job done. That&amp;amp;#8217;s a mind-set that has stuck with me to this day.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226; Photograph: Evans Vestal Ward/Bravo. &amp;amp;#8220;Realize that you have to earn people&amp;amp;#8217;s respect&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Mandana Dayani, 30, vice president of Rachel Zoe Inc. and a regular on The Rachel Zoe Project &amp;amp;#8220;I interned for an attorney who taught me to pay attention to detail the hard way. Every time I turned something in, even if I&amp;amp;#8217;d just missed a comma, he sent it back to me with a huge red X on the paper and said, &amp;amp;#8216;Pay attention!&amp;amp;#8217; At the end of the program, I did a huge research project for him, and I must have read it 50 times before handing it in. When he returned that paper to me, it had a big green check mark on it. Working with him instilled in me that I should never feel entitled to anything and that I had to earn people&amp;amp;#8217;s respect.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226; Photograph: Courtesy of Cornish. &amp;amp;#8220;Get all the advice you can&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Audie Cornish, 32, cohost of National Public Radio&amp;amp;#8217;s All Things Considered &amp;amp;#8220;A lot of the people I am in touch with now in my career are people I&amp;amp;#8217;d asked for help when I was in my first job as an assistant newswriter at a public radio station in Boston. It&amp;amp;#8217;s easy to be intimidated by big voices, but when you&amp;amp;#8217;re just starting out, you have the unique license to open any door in the company and ask, &amp;amp;#8216;How do I get to do what you do?&amp;amp;#8217; People love being asked for advice. It shows you respect what they do. It gets more difficult to ask for professional wisdom from top brass when you&amp;amp;#8217;re further along in your career; you won&amp;amp;#8217;t want to seem ignorant. So take advantage of this time to do it!&amp;amp;#8221; Susan Kropf, Nicole Lapin, and Sue Naegle&amp;amp;#8217;s tips to getting ahead &amp;amp;#187; Photograph: Courtesy of Kropf &amp;amp;#8220;Know that people judge you on more than just your work&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Susan Kropf, 63, former president and COO of Avon and board member for companies like Coach and Kroger &amp;amp;#8220;My assistant job consisted of a lot of record keeping, and I was so intent on getting everything done, I barely spoke to anyone. After a while, my boss told me that his boss thought I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have potential beyond my current job. I was flabbergasted. I saw that I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t getting any credit for slaving away, so I decided to lighten up a little. I did my best with the work but also stopped to speak with my coworkers and managers, and started to participate in a wider array of things going on at the office. A couple of months later, my boss&amp;amp;#8217;s boss called me in to his office and said, &amp;amp;#8216;I am a firm believer that a leopard doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t change its spots, but you proved me wrong. You have a very bright future here.&amp;amp;#8217; Shortly thereafter I was promoted.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226; Photograph: Owen Hoffman/ Patrick McMullan. &amp;amp;#8220;If you don&amp;amp;#8217;t know something, admit it&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Nicole Lapin, 28, former CNN and CNBC anchor and founder of recessionista.com &amp;amp;#8220;I used to just smile and nod when people threw around industry terms I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t know. But when you&amp;amp;#8217;re new to everything, it&amp;amp;#8217;s completely OK to admit you don&amp;amp;#8217;t know something&amp;amp;#8212;and ask questions to figure it out. I changed my routine when I was a junior-level reporter at CBS, covering a breaking news story about a fire in a local apartment building. The anchor asked me on air whether the building&amp;amp;#8217;s tenants had renters insurance, and I said, &amp;amp;#8216;You know what? That&amp;amp;#8217;s a great question. Let me find out, and I&amp;amp;#8217;ll update you.&amp;amp;#8217; It sounded much more professional than stammering.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;amp;#8226; Photograph: Patrick McMullan. &amp;amp;#8220;Find balance now, not later&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Sue Naegle, 42, president of HBO Entertainment &amp;amp;#8220;When I started as an assistant at United Talent Agency, I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t go on vacation for six years. Big mistake. You need to develop a balance early on, because once you are older, it gets even harder. It&amp;amp;#8217;s important to travel and see cultures outside your own and how the world works. I was laser-focused, and I wish I had lifted my head up more often. Having those life experiences helps you grow as a person and in your career.&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;amp;#8212;Lilit Marcus is the author of Save the Assistants: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Workplace. Additional reporting by Devin Tomb."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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