3 Tips For The Perfect Administrative Assistant Resume

July 11, 2017 Career Tips Neha Chauhan No comments

They schedule meetings and appointments, organize everything within the office, and make sure the company has the resources it needs to keep running.

Without the help of administrative assistants, visitors would come and go and CEOs would wander aimlessly into meetings and out of missed appointments.

“Administrative assistants are the backbone of every company”

As the role of the administrative assistant is critical to keeping an office on track, it makes sense that the vetting and hiring process is also more involved.

Hiring managers want to find someone who can keep everything organized over the next several years. If you’re that person, learn how to stand out with a clean and organised resume.

1. Understand What Skills Are Valued by the Company

As you tailor your resume to each individual company and position, make sure you’re highlighting skills and tasks that you will use. Some administrative assistants have more job duties than others, and employees in each office and industry have different workloads. Filing might have been a small part of your job at your past company, for instance, but could take up significantly more time in your new role.

One of the easiest ways to ensure you’re highlighting the skills required by the company you’re applying for is to look at the job description itself.

Technology continues to transform the workplace and management wants administrative professionals who have either mastered specific technologies, or have demonstrated the ability to do so with similar tools.

If the job description mentions technologies you’ve worked with, you, too, should mention them by name, whether it’s Microsoft Office or any other specific productivity, social media, enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) software. Consider including a special section listing all the applications you have worked with in the past, with which you’ve achieved proficiency or mastery.

2. Explain the Organizational Structures You’re Familiar With

As a administrative secretary, you could work with a variety of departments within a company. Front-of-office staff assist people on all levels and departments and often are the first people guests and employees see every day. Meanwhile, executive assistant only work with the CEO, President, or other high-ranking officials to manage their appointments and workload. There’s even a section of secretaries in between who work within one department as an extra set of hands for several people. Even when multiple secretaries have the same job title, their daily tasks could vary greatly.

As you’re drafting your resume, make sure you mention who you reported to and worked for. This will give employers an idea of your level of responsibility and what you’re used to.

3. Use keywords from the job description

Many companies use software that screens resumes for key words and phrases (the same is true for cover letters). Try to use language pulled directly from the job posting (though only if it accurately reflects your background, of course).

For instance, if an employer is looking for someone to handle multiple phone lines, use the phrase “multiple phone lines” in your document rather than simply stating you “answered phone calls.”

If you’re seeking employment as an executive assistant, repeat in your resume key words that the ad lists, which typically include “event planning,” “organizing planning,” “schedule management,” and “presentations.”

Accuracy is a key job skill for administrative professionals. If you turn in a resume with formatting issues or grammatical errors, you’re sending a red flag to potential employers.

Take time to review, and review again. When you’ve gotten your resume as clean as you can, ask someone with an eye for grammar, punctuation and spelling to review it.

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