Adding Administrative Skills to Your Resume in This Year

Administrative professionals need very specific skills in order to succeed at their job. Whether you’re applying to be an office assistant, an executive assistant, or administrative support, you’ll be involved in employee management and support. That’s a lot of responsibility, and this is why administrative positions often have very specific skill requirements. Here’s what you need to know about administrative skills, including how to put your own skill set together, and how to fill out your resume and cover with these skills.

Administrative skills help you manage an office more effectively. In an administrative job, you need a wide variety of skills, including everything from customer service to knowledge of specific software to organizing meetings and travel. If your job search is covering jobs that feature administrative tasks, you’ll want to include administrative skills in your resume so the hiring manager knows you’ll be able to perform these tasks.

While different administrative roles will need different skills, there are typically a core set of important administrative skills that anyone applying for an administrative job should have. These are a few of the most prominent skills you might want to include:

• Communication skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Decision-making skills
• Adaptability
• Multitasking
• Organizational skills
• Time management skills
• Active listening skills
• Teamwork
• Bookkeeping
• Interpersonal skills
• Conflict resolution
• Critical thinking skills
• Microsoft Office skills (Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word)

Remember that different administrative jobs will have different skills they consider important or critical. Some jobs may require that you know how to work with spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel, while some may put more emphasis on QuickBooks knowledge. Whether you’re an administrative assistant or you’re planning to work in project management, check the job description to learn more about the skills they’re expecting you to have.

To describe your administrative skills effectively, you first need to know what skills the company is working for. Look at keywords the hiring manager has used in the job description to describe the requirements for the job. These are the skills you’re going to want to showcase in your application if you want to get the job.

Next, list up to 10 skills. The exact number you’ll want to put in your resume varies; a functional resume will typically include more, while a chronological resume will typically use fewer. Choose skills that are in the job description but that you can also showcase in your work history and achievements.

Lastly, sprinkle proof of your administrative skills throughout your resume. You’ll want to highlight how you’ve used these skills to benefit companies you’ve worked for in the past. For example, look at how you might create bullet points to describe past experiences in a way that bolsters your administrative skills:

• Created PowerPoint presentations for stakeholders once a month to update them on progress
• Made travel arrangements for 50 to 100 employees each year for an annual summit
• Fielded around 50 phone calls per day for management positions
• Created a new process for tagging memos to facilitate easier recall
• Kept company LinkedIn updated, leading to 243% more interactions

These bullet points show that you were given responsibilities and that you used those responsibilities to benefit the company. They’ll allow you to stand out against a sea of job seekers who don’t have the same ability to showcase their administrative skills.