Endless email correspondence, unproductive phone calls, scheduling, and office supply management. As automation has reduced demand for administrative assistants—a trend expected to accelerate over the next decade—many managers and specialized professionals have found themselves unable to focus on their core responsibilities because they are too tied up with clerical tasks. A comprehensive administrative assistant job description can help you attract qualified candidates who can shoulder the clerical duties that are sidetracking you from driving innovation and growing your business.
A capable administrative assistant can be a game changer for a workplace, freeing up their supervisors’ valuable time to strategizing, vendor and customer relations, research and development, professional development, and talent acquisition. But if you think finding qualified candidates for a shrinking workforce category will be a breeze, consider that 50% of U.S. adults cannot read above a seventh-grade level and that the average American worker’s numeracy skills are even shakier than their literacy skills.
To avoid potentially costly and embarrassing clerical errors, you need administrative personnel who are critical readers, capable of understanding and adhering to complex internal policies, industry standards, and governmental regulations. They also need to possess basic budgeting and computation skills. Whether you’re looking for an entry-level administrative assistant or an executive assistant, you’ll want to emphasize your need for high competency levels in math and written communication in your job post.
You can use the general job description below, adding specific qualifications and unique details about your workplace, to look for these and other essential administrative skills. For more ideas on what to include in your job description, you can look through current job posts for administrative assistants from other employers on Monster’s job board.
This template was written by Monster’s team of experts based on job description best practices.
Intro Paragraph: Your job description should begin with a concise overview of the open position and a brief description of your ideal candidate. Writing this summary will help you focus on the most critical qualities you seek in your next administrative assistant.
You might phrase it: “We seek an administrative assistant to join our fast-growing, highly congenial workplace. The ideal candidate is efficient, detail-oriented, and skilled in developing and maintaining workplace and customer relationships.”
About Our Workplace: Use this administrative assistant job description section to highlight what sets your workplace apart. This is also the perfect place to summarize your organizational mission and values and explain what makes your workplace unique. Do you manage a large corporation with multiple opportunities for career growth or a small business with close ties to the local community? Do you run a fast-paced retail enterprise or a highly organized institution?
One of the best ways to craft this section is to ask your existing administrative staff to craft two to three sentences describing what they like best about working for your organization. The more you can communicate the elements that make your work setting stand out, the more likely you will attract applicants who will succeed.
Administrative Assistant Job Responsibilities: The following list of day-to-day job responsibilities may differ significantly depending on your industry, business nature and size, and organizational needs.
Work Hours and Benefits: Next, you’ll want to include the required hours, salary range, and benefits of this position. To determine a fair offer for your city or town, you can use a salary tool like Monster’s, which allows you to input job titles and location to calculate estimates for low, median, and high salaries.
One of the best ways to use this section of your administrative assistant job description is to emphasize benefits and perks that are most likely to appeal to applicants, such as paid time off, health insurance, tuition reimbursement, and other professional development opportunities.
Administrative Assistant Skills: Some candidates are less likely to apply for positions if they think they have only some listed qualifications. Exhaustive lists of required skills and experiences can be especially detrimental if you want to strengthen your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and attract female applicants and candidates from underrepresented groups. For this reason, you may want to limit the number of required skills you include or divide your requirements between “required” and “optional” qualifications.
Education, Experience, and Licensing Requirements:
Call to Action: End your administrative assistant job description with a call to action encouraging qualified applicants to “apply now” by completing an online application.
Copy Job Description Template Text Copy Job Description Template TextAfter editing your administrative assistant job description to meet your hiring needs, you’re ready to start the hiring process. Create a Monster job posting to reach qualified candidates who can make your business more successful.
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