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Administrative Assistant job description

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252 words
Administrative Assistant

ABOUT THE ROLE
[Company name] is hiring an administrative assistant to support our team day to day. You'll manage calendars and meetings, screen calls and email, draft documents and correspondence, book travel, handle expenses, and keep the details from falling through. The job is being the person who notices what's about to be missed, before it's missed.

WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Answer and route incoming calls
• Take accurate messages and pass them on
• Monitor the shared inbox and reply to routine email
• Manage meeting room bookings
• Maintain the team calendar and travel bookings
• Handle invoices, expenses and petty cash
• Screen calls and decide what reaches the person you support
• Book travel and accommodation
• Draft correspondence, documents and presentations
• Take minutes and track action items from meetings
• Prepare and submit expense reports
• Maintain filing and document systems

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
• Administrative or executive support experience
• Precise written communication — what you send out represents the team
• Comfortable managing several calendars and resolving the clashes yourself
• Confident with office software, document systems and expense tools
• Discreet with confidential information

NICE TO HAVE
• Experience supporting a senior leader or a multi-person team
• Familiarity with the tools we use day to day

DETAILS
• Employment type: Full-time

TO APPLY
Send your résumé and a short note about why this role suits you to [Company name]. We read every application and reply to all of them.

Nothing you type is uploaded — this runs entirely in your browser.

What the role involves

We're hiring an administrative assistant to support our team day to day. You'll manage calendars and meetings, screen calls and email, draft documents and correspondence, book travel, handle expenses, and keep the details from falling through. The job is being the person who notices what's about to be missed, before it's missed.

Core duties

  • Answer and route incoming calls
  • Take accurate messages and pass them on
  • Monitor the shared inbox and reply to routine email
  • Manage meeting room bookings
  • Maintain the team calendar and travel bookings
  • Handle invoices, expenses and petty cash
  • Screen calls and decide what reaches the person you support
  • Book travel and accommodation
  • Draft correspondence, documents and presentations
  • Take minutes and track action items from meetings
  • Prepare and submit expense reports
  • Maintain filing and document systems

Requirements

  • Administrative or executive support experience
  • Precise written communication — what you send out represents the team
  • Comfortable managing several calendars and resolving the clashes yourself
  • Confident with office software, document systems and expense tools
  • Discreet with confidential information

Nice to have

  • Experience supporting a senior leader or a multi-person team
  • Familiarity with the tools we use day to day

Skills to screen for

Calendar managementWritten communicationPrioritizationDiscretionAttention to detailFollow-through

Be honest about the phone

A good assistant is a filter. Calls come to you so they don't go to the person you support, which means deciding in about ten seconds whether something is urgent, routine or noise — and being right often enough to be trusted with the judgement.

Worth writing into the description rather than leaving as a surprise. Candidates who are good at it will recognize the description and apply; the ones who would have quit in month two will screen themselves out, which is the cheapest screening you will ever do.

What the hire actually covers

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the median wage for secretaries and administrative assistants at $48,310 a year ($23.23/hour) as of 2025, before employer payroll taxes, benefits and paid time off. Source.

Either way you get 40 of the 168 hours in a week. The remaining 128 — evenings, weekends, lunch cover, sick days, holidays — are hours our team still takes calls, and nobody is on the desk for them.

Hire the person. Just budget for the gap too, and work out what it's costing with the missed-call cost calculator.

Administrative Assistant FAQ

  • What does an administrative assistant do?+

    Supports a person or a team: managing calendars and meetings, screening calls and email, drafting documents, booking travel, processing expenses, and keeping track of commitments. The specifics vary a lot by employer, which is why the duties list matters more than the title.

  • What's the difference between an administrative assistant and a receptionist?+

    A receptionist serves everyone who contacts the business; an assistant serves specific people inside it. Receptionists are front-of-house and phone-first; assistants are behind the scenes and calendar-first. Small businesses often combine them, and if yours does, say so.

  • What skills should an administrative assistant have?+

    Prioritization above everything else. The tools are learnable in a week; judging which of six competing requests actually matters today is not, and it's what separates an assistant who helps from one who adds a step.

  • What should I pay an administrative assistant?+

    It varies widely by market and by how much judgement the role carries — an assistant who runs a leadership calendar sits well above one doing data entry. Post a range either way: several states now require it, and ranges attract more applicants everywhere else.

The other 128 hours

Hire the receptionist. Cover the rest of the week.

RingOwl answers the calls your front desk can't — after hours, at lunch, and on the second line when the first one's busy. It books appointments into your calendar, takes messages, and emails you a summary of every call.

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