Administrative Assistant Job Description Sample

If you’re hiring an Administrative Assistant, you can offer a detailed job description to ensure you attract the most qualified candidates. Since the duties of these office professionals can widely vary, you’ll want to offer them as clear a picture of their responsibilities as possible. You can use this sample to write your job description, and modify it to suit your position.

Build a job description

Are you a job seeker? Find Jobs.

What does an Administrative Assistant do?

Administrative Assistants handle routine and advanced duties for other professionals. They organize files, create correspondence, prepare reports and documents, manage calendars to schedule appointments, sort mail, prepare invoices and offer general staff support. They may serve as an initial point of contact, answering phones and greeting visitors. They might engage in event planning and meeting setup and implementation. Very often they will make travel arrangements and generate itineraries. They have to deal with other people from a wide variety of levels, from clients to management and even corporate CEOs.

Administrative Assistant duties and responsibilities

The core duties and responsibilities of an Administrative Assistant revolve around supporting others. Their job duties can vary widely, not just from job to job, but from day to day at the same job. On any given day, they may perform a variety of tasks, such as:

Answer phones and greet visitors
Schedule appointments and maintain calendars
Schedule and coordinate staff and other meetings
Collate and distribute mail
Prepare communications, such as memos, emails, invoices, reports and other correspondence
Write and edit documents from letters to reports and instructional documents
Create and maintain filing systems, both electronic and physical
Manage accounts and perform bookkeeping

Administrative Assistant skills and qualifications

In order to perform their various duties, an Administrative Assistant must exhibit many varied skills and qualifications. At the core, the Administrative Assistant is a support position, meaning that communications and decision-making are paramount. A few of the specific skills that all administrative assistants should possess include:

Decision-making: Administrative Assistants have to make independent decisions on a daily basis, addressing the best way to handle specific tasks.
Communications and collaboration: An Administrative Assistant must collaborate with other administrators and support personnel, management and clients on a regular basis.
Organizational skills: Organization and prioritization are the core elements of the Administrative Assistant's responsibilities. You must know how to keep yourself and others organized and how to determine which tasks are the most important in a given list.
Writing: Spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and writing are essential to an Administrative Assistant, who must be proficient in a variety of styles, from creative to professional to technical to education and more.

Administrative Assistant salary expectations

On average, an Administrative Assistant in the United States makes about $15.42 per hour. At the highest end of the range, executive Administrative Assistants with a great deal of education and experience can earn as much as $30.25 an hour.

Administrative Assistant education and training requirements

The minimum level of education for an Administrative Assistant is a high school diploma or GED. Temporary agencies may also provide training in these areas. For those straight out of high school, courses in word processing and general office procedures are offered at vocational schools and community colleges and can be very helpful. Administrative Assistants with a bachelor’s degree are more marketable, as they are seen to have a more well-rounded education that includes writing and mathematics, which can be useful to the job.

Administrative Assistant experience requirements

While prior experience is not strictly required for work as an Administrative Assistant, many employers value prior work in the field. This is because many office professionals learn their major skills through on-the-job training, and a strong history of long-term work with other organizations can show reliability, responsibility and that you possess the skills you need. Starting as a secretary and working up through the ranks also shows increasing skill development and dedication.

Job description samples for similar positions

If this Administrative Assistant job description isn’t an exact match for your organization’s needs, check out our job description templates for similar and related jobs below:

Job Description Examples

Need help writing a job description for a specific role? Use these job description examples to create your next great job posting. Or if you’re ready to hire, post your job on Indeed.

A-C D-H I-L M-P Q-S T-Z

*Indeed provides this information as a courtesy to users of this site. Please note that we are not your recruiting or legal advisor, we are not responsible for the content of your job descriptions, and none of the information provided herein guarantees performance.