Who Are Administrative Assistants?
An administrative assistant is someone who gives clerical and secretarial support to the management by doing errands such as typing, filing and many other roles that a personal assistant does. The work could include being a receptionist and doing some project work.By the year 2004, the US department of labor statistics estimated the number of administrative assistants to be around 4.1 millions.
Where Do Administrative Assistants Work
There are many places where administrative assistants can work. Some of these areas include the office setting of all organization such as banks, schools, malls, insurance companies, business and many more.Duties and Responsibilities of Administrative Assistants
From this administrative assistant job description, it should be clear that the roles that these people perform greatly vary depending on the specific settings of their working environments.However, some of the main roles that most of the administrative assistants perform include the following:
- Giving information by answering question and calls as well as transferring some of the calls to other staff members
- Welcoming, meeting, and greeting visitors and clients as well as being a correspondence of the organization
- Creating and modifying documents using word processors such as Microsoft Word
- Doing clerical work such as faxing, photocopying, filing, mailing and many other related jobs
- Maintaining a good electronic and hard copy files – record keeping and retrieving of documents whenever they are required
- Booking appointment, setting up meetings, and conferences in various venues
- Maintaining inventory of all the equipment owned by a business firm such as PCs, phones, printers, stationary and so on.
- Responsible of arranging the offices to ensure everything is in its right place within business premises
- Maintaining all the equipment used in the business enterprise as well as arranging for repair in case of any damages
- Resolving administrative problems by coordinating report preparation and finding out solutions
There are other duties and responsibilities, which administrative assistants do, and this depends on settings and roles of the business enterprise.
Academic Qualifications and Other Requirements
Depending on the specific role, administrative assistants could have associate degrees, diploma and certificates level of education from various administrative assistant programs. These coursework normally give general knowledge about the job, keyboarding, office and database management.The common certification given to administrative assistants includes Certified Administrative Professional and Certified Professional Secretary and to get them, one has to pass the certifying examination. Some programs are specific to the role someone does such as legal and medical.
In case one does not have any certifications, some of the very important academic qualifications required are as follows.
- Any person who is employed as an administrative assistant should have minimum qualification of a high school diploma or the equivalent at the entry level.
- The person should also have some computer and telephone handling skills
- Should have good typing speeds, at least 50 words per minute though this can be gained as time goes by
Administrative Assistants Skills and Qualities
Some of the desirable qualities and skills that the administrative assistants should do include:- Good planning and organizational skills
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
- Good sense of prioritizing
- Ability to assess and solve problems
- Should be adaptive
- Be keen to details and very accurate
- Flexibility
- Team players
- Reporting skills
- Skills to write administrative documents
- Good inventory and record keeping skills
It should however, be stressed out that the specific skills and qualities employers will be looking for could vary greatly depending on the specific role a given administrative assistant will be doing.
Administrative Assistant Salaries
Administrative assistants earn competitive salaries. According to the BLS report of May 2010, these professionals were earning an average salary of $30,830.The well-trained and executive administrative assistants earn up to or more than $40,000 depending on their specific qualification, experience and job tittles they hold. In addition to that, most of these professionals receive bonuses.