Administrative Assistant

Administrative Assistant is a broad job category that designates an individual who provides various kinds of administrative support to people and groups in business enterprises.

• Employees with the title of Administrative Assistant generally provide support to specific departments or teams in a company (such as Human Resources, Accounting, Development, Sales and Marketing or Information Technology). In small companies, "admins" can provide support for everyone in the office.
• Secretaries or Executive Assistants provide support to individual (usually high-ranking) company executives or small groups of executives. Their responsibilities often include handling more private or sensitive corporate and personal information than other employees.
• The main job of a Receptionist is to answer the telephone and take messages for an office or a department, and also to greet visitors to the office.
• Project Assistants provide support to specific projects in a company (e.g. activities that have a defined goal and end-point).
• Personal Assistants provide support for a specific individual, and their responsibilities often include taking care of non-office related tasks, such as running personal errands.
• Clerks often provide office support that is confined to one or two specific tasks, such as filing or data entry.
• Accounting Assistants provide support to a company's finance, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable departments. Employees in these positions tend to have more specialized knowledge of accounting and finance.
• Production Assistant is a term used to describe people who provide support for people and groups in film and television production.

Duties of Administrative Assistants

Administrative Assistants perform many basic functions in offices, including:

• Assisting with all aspects of administrative management, directory maintenance, logistics, equipment inventory and storage
• Managing inventory of assets and supplies, monitoring critical level of stocks, sourcing for suppliers and submitting invoices
• Coordinating between departments and operating units in resolving day-to-day administrative and operational problems
• Scheduling and coordinating meetings, interviews, events and other similar activities
• Sending out and receiving mail and packages
• Preparing business correspondence (often using word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation computer software)
• Sending faxes
• Managing Files
• Research
• Ordering and receiving food deliveries
• Performing multifaceted general office support