Administrative Assistant Job Description – Types
An Administrative Assistant Job Description usually includes secretaries and assistants that provide clerical support to offices. There are other higher level Administrative Assistant Duties as you go up the chain but educational background varies and so do salaries. Essentially, an administrative assistant is hired to offer support to other office personnel and depending on the size of the business, such an employee’s specific duties will vary.
Some of the duties include scheduling meetings, making travel arrangements and organizing files around the office. The Administrative Assistant Job Description states that such individuals should be familiar with certain office equipment such as video conferencing equipment, photocopiers, fax machines and scanners.
Career options are set up as follows:
Executive assistants: They are responsible for providing support for managers and other company executives whereby some of the duties may include clerical responsibilities like setting up correspondence with other executives in the conference room or making reports. Executive assistants can also supervise other clerical assistants and be involved in conducting research.
Virtual assistants: These kinds of assistants are more common nowadays, as people prefer to work from home and companies continue to outsource their work. They work just as any Administrative Assistant except their work online. Depending on their qualifications, they may work in the medical or legal field as assistants or just as general assistants in plenty of other fields.
Legal or medical secretaries: As for any profession, they need the technical knowledge to handle the procedures that come with each field. For instance, in the legal field, experience in matters relating to insurance such as claims and billing is necessary if they are to handle the job. In addition, each law firm has its own legislation of the laws they practice and their assistants have to be informed.
Other Administrative Assistant Jobs may include the field of engineering or schools and in either of them, an assistant has to work with specific materials. The job outlook for administrative assistants varies greatly and is mostly dependent on the type of industry in which one chooses to work. While general projections of the career show a continual growth, it is only a minimal development and only legal and medical secretaries have better growth.
Executive assistants are increasingly hiring college graduates so in order to level the odds, it may help to further one’s qualifications; the pay for such positions are definitely worth the study necessary. According to the BLS Administrative Assistant Job Description, annual salaries are $38,830 for general assistants while legal and medical assistants get more than $40,000 annually. Administrative Assistant Salary varies with each industry and things like bonuses may also play a part in annual earnings.
Almost any general Administrative Assistant Job Description requires that candidates have certification in the relevant field and perhaps some working experience. In order to get a job as an entry-level assistant, a high school diploma is necessary and for associate degrees and certificates, each program comes with its relevant course. Some programs cater to specific assistant jobs like medical or legal administrative assistant posts and the coursework will cover all the relevant procedures and terminology used in that field.