You might not enjoy complex and stressful work yourself, but you thrive in support roles, helping those with difficult responsibilities stay organized and in control. You are a natural-born administrative assistant.
However, not all administrative assistants have the exact same duties. You might explore how administrative assistants in different industries operate, so you can find the exact right role for you.
Office Assistants
Often boasting the simple title of “administrative assistant” though sometimes with an elevated title such as “office manager,” office assistants are administrators who perform the basic and essential clerical duties required in a regular office setting. Typically, these administrators take responsibility for keeping workspaces organized, ensuring the availability of equipment and materials and scheduling meetings and other events, though more experienced and highly credentialed office assistants may also provide assistance with advanced tasks like bookkeeping or budget planning.
There are no universal qualifications for office assistants; some offices may demand merely a high school diploma, while others may expect a master’s degree or more. You might look for roles that fit your current credentials and, while gaining real-world experience, work to gain additional credentials for better-paying, more prestigious positions.
Accounting Assistants
If the prospect of managing a company’s books as an administrative assistant is appealing to you, you might equip yourself with the skills and knowledge necessary to function as an accounting assistant. Accounting assistants work with accountants, auditors or other finance professionals, often in accounting departments or firms, providing support to ensure that an organization’s finances are properly managed. An accounting assistant may have tasks such as preparing and sending invoices, managing accounts payable, and searching financial records for errors. As with office assistants, there are no mandatory credentials for accounting assistants, though most accountants will expect their assistants to have some academic or real-world experience managing financial documents.
Virtual Assistants
While the term is increasingly associated with AI-driven software like Siri, Alexa and the Google Assistant, the original meaning behind the term “virtual assistant” is a living, breathing person who provides support remotely. Often, virtual assistants work as independent contractors, whom businesses or individuals can hire on a temporary basis to provide necessary support for certain projects. Hiring a virtual assistant or a virtual executive assistant might help organize digital files, enter data, manage event vendors, schedule appointments and more. To function effectively as a virtual assistant, you need to be well-versed in a wide variety of digital systems and maintain an expert-level communication skill to ensure that you can deliver exactly what you clients expect.
Healthcare Assistants
Healthcare providers like doctors and nurses cannot function if they do not have the support of administrative staff. However, healthcare administrators tend to have much more complex responsibilities than typical administrative staff. For one, healthcare is a highly regulated industry, which means that administrators must ensure that their office practices — and their medical staff — are maintaining compliance with their systems and processes.
Thus, healthcare assistants should seek the proper skills and knowledge through medical administrative assistant programs, which provide high-quality credentials necessary for securing these positions. Fortunately, for this extra effort, healthcare administrative assistants have the opportunity to take home higher salaries than other types of assistants, and the healthcare administration field can offer much more lucrative career paths for assistants than other industries.
Legal Assistants
Lawyers are other highly trained and specialized professionals who rely heavily on their administrative support. There are many different types of legal assistants, from legal secretaries who prepare correspondence and legal papers for attorneys to paralegals who help lawyers conduct research and create legal documents. Because the work in legal settings tends to be demanding, this type of administrative assistant is often paid well and can enjoy a high degree of job security — as long as they are diligent and effective in their tasks.
As with other types of administrative assistants, legal secretaries and assistants do not have a standard mandatory credential; a high school diploma may be the only academic requirement, though some amount of professional experience is often expected at this high level of employment. Paralegals, on the other hand, should have an associate or bachelor’s degree in the field as well as certification from a respected organization.
You can make a career from being an administrative assistant, or you can use your experience as an administrative assistant to launch yourself onto a different career path. Whatever you choose, you should think carefully about the type of administrative assistant you want to be.
