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Administrative Assistant

Although administrative assistants, executive secretaries, and executive assistants share many of the same duties as secretaries, they are generally responsible for less secretarial duties.  Administrative assistants may be enlisted for arranging conference calls, hiring and supervising other clerical professionals, training employees, scheduling meetings, preparing statistical reports, or conducting research.  They use office equipment such as computers, scanners, photocopiers, fax machines, and teleconferencing equipment, and in some corporations are responsible for their upkeep.  Although there are many industries administrative assistants can enter, those interested in medical or legal careers must commonly undergo more extensive training in order to learn the specifics for composing legal motions, complaints, summons, medical reports, patient histories, transcriptions, and dictations.  An administrative Professionals’ main goal is to keep all of the associates in an office organized and maintain scheduling, but there may be a number of other duties that may be necessary as well.

In 2004, approximately 1,547,000 administrative assistants and executive secretaries were employed throughout all industries.  Training for administrative assistant jobs depends on the employer, and may require only a high school diploma, or a bachelor’s degree.  Although a high school diploma is the basic requirement, employers increasingly prefer candidates with additional training in technology or software systems.  Candidates may gain knowledge from previous employment, or vocational or certification programs.  In addition to keyboarding skills, associates will experience more success if their punctuation, spelling, grammar, and interpersonal skills are well developed.  Administrative professions, especially those in medical and legal services, discretion is mandated when dealing with sensitive information.  Those interested in the medical or legal field may attend any number of training programs, but a bachelor’s education is increasingly mandated in order to begin a career.  Legal secretaries may benefit from certifications which require professionals with at least five years experience to pass a written examination. 

Although a number of occupations have been adversely affected by technological advances, automation, software systems, and other tools, they have only increased the amount of duties administrative assistants may complete, and proved to increase their overall worth to an organization.  Even with the projected advances in technology, these professionals will be utilized in order to deliver highly personalized services to clients, customers, and other employees.  Overall, these occupations will experience less than the 14% average growth that is projected to near-average growth.  Administrative assistants will be necessary to not only fill positions due to industry growth, but also to replace associates leaving the field.  Professionals with a variety of skills and experience will face the highest prospects when conducting their administrative assistant job search through 2014.

Administrative and executive assistant jobs allow professionals many comforts and amenities.  Candidates most commonly work out of corporate, legal, or medical offices, government agencies, schools, hospitals, and a variety of other settings.  Although it is often mandated for candidates to sit at a keyboard for an extended amount of time, which can possibly cause a variety of conditions such as eyestrain, back pain, or repetition related injuries, these occupations commonly offer flexible working conditions to professionals.  It is not uncommon to work temporary or part time shifts, but most commonly, associates complete a standard 40 hour week.  Depending on the specific specialty, hours, duties, or conditions may differ, but these occupations are relatively similar.

For more information on a career as an administrative assistant, please visit the following sites:

• Allied Schools
• DuBois Business College
• GT Solutions
• Jefferson Community College
• Tele-Conferences.net

If you are searching for an administrative assistant position, or are looking to hire an administration professional, please visit iHireSecretarial.  We are a niche job board focusing only on administrative, clerical, secretarial, and data entry careers and candidates.