Essential Skills to Master if You Want to Be an Office Assistant

Becoming an office assistant is interesting and challenging: you need to demonstrate professional accomplishments and craft a winning resume.

In this article, we will explore:

• what are the main office assistant skills;
• how to use resume editor service wisely;
• whether you need a technology background to succeed.

Let’s dive into the topic and start from the definition of an office assistant position! 

What Is an Office Assistant?

Office assistants are the ones responsible for handling organizational tasks and managing coworkers. To succeed in this role, a candidate must demonstrate a number of hard and soft skills. 

What do office assistants do? Here are some of their duties: 

• overseeing clerical tasks (including sorting and sending mail); 
• maintaining a filing system; 
• keeping the order of all the appointments; 
• welcoming visitors. 

To show that you’re a great match for the position, you should reflect a great personality in your resume, depicting a professional who’s always ready to help. If you’re not good at writing, try resume helper services to get yourself an interview.

Office Assistant Technical Skills

The main skills for office assistant include the following:

• research and analysis of databases;
• communication (oral and written);
• organization and planning in spreadsheets;
• managing corporate programs;
• phone etiquette — taking incoming calls and making appointments;
• problem-solving — in case of emergencies, unsatisfied customers, etc.

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The office assistant position is great both for people starting their career path and for experienced professionals. However, if you’re changing your workplace, you need to transition properly: by providing respectful reasoning to quit a company.

Office Assistant Non-Technical Skills

There are many soft skills in the office assistant requirements, such as:

• empathy — being able to address any situation with a professional attitude;
• trustworthiness — this quality might not be listed in formal duties, but an office assistant must be the person customers can rely on;
• respectfulness — especially regarding the private space of coworkers or during meetings.

To become an office assistant, you don’t have to list the summary of qualifications, but you certainly need to take a look at the job description. This will prevent misunderstandings during an interview.

The Best Skills to Be a Perfect Match for the Position

The top skills for office assistant include being a great communicator and a problem-solver. You have to show stress resistance as well because clients will come to you regarding different matters: whether it’s bad service or weak Internet connection, etc.

Here’s the list of more abilities recruiters will check:

• organizational;
• time-management;
• planning;
• resourcefulness;
• being tech-savvy;
• knowledge of tools that automate routine processes.

Let’s see what recruiting firms are looking for. We’ll define the most common skills to understand why you need them at a job.

Communication

Talking to people is the core of office assistant qualifications. You need to respond to different messages and navigate through multichannel phones. 

The other tricky moment is active listening: customers don’t want to repeat a request. Since you’re the first person they talk to (but not always the one who can solve an issue), it’s vitally important to understand what they say and transfer it to the appropriate department.

Organizational

One of the office assistant job requirements is scheduling appointments and meetings. As the main point of contact, you’ll work with the people who want to see a specialist or pitch an idea (it depends on what kind of services the company provides).

Administrators need to be aware of all the appointments and avoid misunderstanding. Being less organized than expected may lead to a conflict, for example, when time slots for meetings overlap and two customers bump into each other.

Problem-Solving

Unfortunately, things don’t always go as expected, so problem-solving is among the critical skills to be an office assistant.

Besides answering questions, you must be ready to deal with unexpected situations (during meetings, for example) while responding to clients’ requests at the same time. 

It’s not that hard to resolve conflicts when you know the product inside out. To make the best out of a job (and out of your life), you need to get along with your colleagues and ask for help if you need it. 

Planning 

Multitasking is the second name of an office assistant. Making appointments and managing calendar events and activities are basic skills of a office assistant. 

Why should you be aware of everything happening during office hours? Because clients approach you first: sometimes they need information, and other times — clarification. A talented office assistant knows exactly which time to schedule the next meeting and how to get a hold of colleagues.

Detail-Oriented

Employers need results; they ask for specific attention to every detail. That’s why having a keen eye even for minor flaws comprises the list of skills of office assistant.

What does that mean? You’re eager and motivated to keep everything in order: from inventory at the back office to Excel data. You’ll never miss a chance to improve the operations so that the work goes smoothly. Everything about you is perfect: from an eye-catching resume to a detailed knowledge of products and services.

How to Improve Office Assistant Skills

The proven way to get enough skills for an office assistant job is to get hired by a successful work team. If it’s unclear to you how to improve office assistant skills, you might need to ask for career advice or request a professional writer to better suit your needs.

Nowadays, lots of recruiting firms use ATS (applicant tracking system) to streamline the process. Therefore, you should be creative enough to highlight your skills and stand out among other candidates.

Follow Influencers in the Field

There’s no such thing as an office assistant education: you just need to do your job diligently and learn from mistakes. However, practical advice from specialists may come in handy.

We wanted to find a helpful office assistant blog for you, and here’s our top 3 list:

• The Office Assistant Online — Aliet Ray’s work is dedicated to a virtual assistance field, but she can tell a lot about the administrative position because she’s qualified for it.
• All Things Admin Blog — the page of an administrative professional with over 25 years of experience; Julie Perrine shares useful educational resources and career planning tools.
• Morgan Hunter Blog — a must-read for any person related to an office assistant field; you’ll find many posts related to a job search, as well as to building your LinkedIn profile from scratch.

How to Showcase Your Skills

An office assistant qualification requires being open-minded and communicative. You’ll have to work on both hard and soft skills to showcase your professional attitude to the job. Besides, an office assistant is a great position to start from; the more ambitious you are, the more chances you get to climb career stairs.

The tasks assigned to you at a workplace need attention to detail and the ability to work in a multitasking environment. Let’s take a closer look at how to highlight your skills on a resume!

Office Assistant Skills in a Resume Skills Section

To land an interview, you have to demonstrate certain skills needed for office assistant. This profession requires taking the initiative and vouching for your responsibilities. 

Here’s an example of how to put the skills in a resume:

• Communicative
• Empathetic
• Responsible
• Self-motivated
• Problem-solver
• Detail-oriented

Make sure your skills section matches the requirements mentioned in the job description. It will allow you to pass applicant tracking software.

Also, if you’re well-versed in some tools necessary for the job, feel free to mention them as well. The more skills you possess, the easier it will be to get noticed by recruiters.

Office Assistant Skills in a Resume Work Experience Section

To impress a hiring manager, you need to mention your qualifications from the very beginning. Here’s how you can emphasize the skills required for office assistant when talking about the work experience:

• was praised for showing great verbal and written communication skills; 
• earned the highest marks in customers’ reviews as a professional office assistant. 

If you have trouble highlighting your professional abilities in the work experience section, find a resume helper on Skillhub to get introduced to proven resume writing techniques.

To Wrap It Up

To sum up all the office assistant skills, one article isn’t enough. To put it simply — you need to have great human qualities first and engage easily both with customers and company employees. 

A solid resume is the only chance for you to get more interviews since this is the first document the recruiter will review. Showcase your work experiences in good light to leave no doubts about your candidature as the best option for the employer.

And if you’re not sure how to craft a winning job application, don’t hesitate to turn to our expert resume writers and skyrocket your chances of getting hired!