What does an administrative assistant do? This is a common question that arises when people start to consider working as administrative assistants. If you have been thinking about this in your own life, you may need an administrative assistant job description to help you see what this career could do for you. The work that you do in this industry will vary considerably based on the place you work for, but there are some duties you could encounter across the board. The job description below should give you insight into how this job may help you in the future.
Common Administrative Assistant Duties
The duties of an administrative assistant will change from one employer to the next, and they may actually change from one day to the next. Administrative assistants pick up all the work in an office that no one else has the time to do, which means that they get stuck with a lot of random projects to do throughout the day. Some people love the change of pace they receive in this line of work, but others get overwhelmed by the tasks they have to do. How you respond to the work involved with this career will depend on your personality.
As an administrative assistant, you will most likely be asked to answer phone calls, organize paperwork, communicate with managers and clients, gather supplies, schedule meetings, manage small projects, answer emails, place work orders, host videoconferences, conduct researching, manage stock rooms, negotiate with vendors, sign for mail, and create spreadsheets and reports. You may also be asked to do field-specific duties, like researching cases if you are a legal assistant. All of this depends on your employer and the specific position you hold in your place of work.
Pay Rates for Administrative Assistants
Administrative assistants make decent money, especially for the limited amount of training that they go through for work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the middle 50% of administrative assistants in the US earn between $23,160 and $36,020 a year. The top 10% of administrative assistants surveyed earned over $43,240 a year, and the lowest 10% only earned $18,440 a year. Median wage levels were $29,050 in 2008, but they may be slightly in the present day.
The BLS also suggests that salary levels depend a lot on a person’s employer. Most of the industries they surveyed had varying pay rates based on job duties and the available funding that the employer had. Some of their data includes local governments paying $32,610 a year; colleges, universities, and professional schools paying $31,530 a year; general medical and surgical hospitals paying $30,960; elementary and secondary schools paying $29,850 a year; and employment services paying $28,340. Those industries had the largest number of administrative assistants in 2008.
Job Outlook for Administrative Assistants
According to the BLS, administrative assistance is a fast growing career path. Job opportunities continue to expand with the population, so you should have plenty of jobs available to you if you decide to make this your career of choice. The BLS projects an 11% growth over a ten year period, as employers continue to seek administrative assistants for their office tasks. Most employers have found that it is more cost effective for them to pay administrative assistants to do work than it is to pay other employees. That is why you will find many job openings for you when you get out of school. All of this should work in your favor in the end.
Becoming an Administrative Assistant
If the administrative assistant job description above has excited you enough to make you consider this career as your own, you need to look into getting a degree related to the field you want to work in. If you aren’t sure which field you may go to in the future, you can always get a degree in business administration to cover the basics. Then you could get the remainder of your training in the job you get hired for in the future.
Administrative assistance is an easy career field to get involved with, and it has enough earning opportunities to satisfy most workers’ needs from month to month. You could get into a career like this in no time at all, and then you could start supporting your family the way you are supposed to. Everything starts with a good education, so get the training you need to be an administrative assistant. You will be earning money in no time.
