What is an administrative assistant? What does an administrative do? How much money does an administrative assistant make? These questions and more are liable to come up if you are looking into a career in administrative assistance. This is a vastly growing field, and it holds a number of job opportunities that you could benefit from in the future. Before you decide if this is the right career for you, you need to know what is involved with it. Here is a brief description of the job so you can figure out if this is your destined career path.
Administrative Assistant Job Description
Administrative assistants are responsible for a variety of tasks in an office. Some of those tasks include: organizing paperwork, scheduling meetings, hosting videoconferences, answering phone calls, managing small projects, answering emails, placing work orders, communicating with managers and clients, conducting researching, gathering supplies, managing stock rooms, signing for mail, negotiating with vendors, and creating spreadsheets and reports. In essence, administrative assistants perform all of the duties necessary to keep an office running smoothly.
Types of Administrative Assistants
There are many different categories of administrative assistants, so you have the option to specialize in this field if you want to. You could work in the legal field as a law assistant or the medical field as a medical assistant. If you wanted to work at the corporate level of a business, you could find a job as an executive assistant. Most people will start out as entry level secretaries because they can begin work right out of high school. For those who want more out of their career though, degree programs usually act as venues for upper level job opportunities.
Administrative Assistant Training Requirements
If you purely want to be a secretary, you may be able to get a job without a college education. However, most businesses prefer to hire applicants with college degrees because they have a higher understanding of the industry they are working in. This is especially true for specialized sectors, like law or medicine. If you want to work in something like that, you should get a degree related to the field of study you would like to be in.
Online educational opportunities provide students with a chance to earn their degrees while working at the lower levels of the administrative assistance industry. You could go to school online during the night and spend your days working as a secretary for a company in your area. Some students enjoy doing this because it allows them to apply what they are learning in college to a real life situation. There are tons of degree programs online that relate to administrative assistance, so you can surely find something that will work with your goals in the future. Otherwise, you can try to work your way up the hard way.
Administrative Assistant Salary Levels
Administrative assistants do not make a lot of money, but they do earn more than most minimum wage jobs. According to PayScale.com, the average administrative assistant earns between $9.87 and $19.28 an hour. Overtime pay rates range from $14.43 to $30.09 an hour, but the higher numbers reflect pay rates for executive assistants. Even though this career provides decent pay, it does not offer a lot of opportunity for higher earnings in the future. Annually, most administrative assistants earn between $21,094 and $44,677.
Women make up 94% of employed administrative assistants at the moment, and they typically get paid more than their male counterparts. The average female may earn anywhere from $11.66 an hour to $16.32. Comparably, the average male only earns $10.70 an hour to $15.40. The highest paying areas of the country are in New England and along the west coast, but the cost of living in those areas is also high. You may bring home the same money regardless of where you live.
Job Outlook for Administrative Assistants
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, administrative assistance is a growing field. This sector of the job force is expected to grow 11% between 2008 and 2018, mainly due to an increase in the size of the population. With the economy in a rut at the moment, employers have begun searching for administrative assistants to cover job duties that were once passed on to other workers. Administrative assistants are cheaper to employ, and therefore they are in high demand. This could all work in your favor in the end if you decide that this is the right career path for you.
