Career advice: how to excel at admin

Also choose admin roles strategically if you can. I think there are many caveats to this advice though: one of my colleagues has not had a substantial admin role and has been promoted on the basis of publications, which is of course easier to achieve if you effectively don't have admin. Another colleague has been promoted solely on the basis of her admin roles but others don't get the same recognition for what they do.

Dear Meme ... I'd observe three things. First, admin roles do vary enormously in terms of perceived prestige so a little strategy doesn't go amiss. Second, somebody has to do these things and in some ways an attitude of being (un)willing to take on the less prestigious roles is a marker for the culture of your department, school, institute, faculty or college. In my experience, there are more cases of people promoted on the basis of a more rounded portfolio than there are of those promoted with exceptional performance in one area and blanks in others. Of course, exceptional performance gets you noticed and is perfectly laudable but it then depends on quite how exceptional and with what consequences in terms of your treatment of colleagues. Thanks for the comment.