All About Administrative Assistant Jobs

The administrative assistant keeps the company running smoothly. She has a variety of duties that are growing in complexity and breadth. This is because companies are realizing the importance of administrative assistants, their flexibility, and their ability to adapt to challenging situations.

The administrative assistant is responsible for a variety of duties. They maintain paper and electronic filing systems for records and messages, route and distribute incoming mail and email, answer routine letters and email, reply and attach files to incoming messages, correct spelling and grammar to ensure accuracy, operate fax machines, videoconferencing and phone systems, and other office equipment, use computers for spreadsheet, word processing, database management, and other applications, and complete forms in accordance with company procedures. They use computer software to create spreadsheets, compose messages, manage databases, and produce presentations, reports, and documents. They negotiate with vendors, buy supplies, manage stockrooms or corporate libraries, and get data from various sources.

Other responsibilities include include storing, retrieving, and disseminating information to staff, acting as a liaison between client and executive, scheduling travel, booking conference rooms, planning events, overseeing budgets, creating proposals, drafting correspondence, creating company literature, emailing memos, maintaining paper and electronic files, conduct research, and direct calls over the telephone.

Greeting customers is a big part of the admin's job. They must always smile and warmly address the customer, ask if they need anything, and direct them to the appropriate person.

Other job duties include creating spreadsheets, composing correspondence, managing databases, and creating presentations, reports, and documents using desktop publishing software and digital graphics. They greet guests, answer phones, direct calls, answer correspondence, manage inventories and stockrooms, and purchase supplies.

Finally they should also plan on reading, monitoring and responding to the boss's email, answering calls and handling queries, preparing correspondence on the boss's behalf, commissioning work on the boss's behalf, liaising with staff, clients, managing the principal's electronic diary, booking meetings, organizing travel and preparing complex travel itineraries, writing minutes, taking dictation, planning, organizing and managing events, managing a budget, attending events/meetings as the principal's representative, conducting research on the internet, writing reports, executive summaries and newsletters, preparing presentations, preparing papers for meetings, managing and reviewing filing and office systems, updating websites, typing documents, sourcing and ordering stationery and office equipment, managing projects, and managing an assistant.

Administrative assistants are paid about average, making more than minimum wage but not the salary of someone with a more specialized career. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that median annual wage for secretaries and administrative assistants was $34,660 in May 2010. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $21,730, and the top 10 percent earned more than $55,960.

A degree is not typically required to become an administrative assistant. High school graduates can get basic office, computer, and English grammar skills in various ways: through high school vocational education programs, vocational–technical schools, or community colleges. There isn't a mandate to go to school unless the worker wants to further their career.