Administrative Secretary Job Description
From a clerical role that included mostly typing and filing, the 21st century administrative secretary has evolved into a employee with a wide variety of skills and duties that help make an office more efficient and effective. The range of duties and responsibilities are often a matrix determined by the nature of the company and the needs of the managers.
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Typical Types of Duties
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As an administrative secretary, your job will ordinarily consist of three categories of activities. The products and services of the employing company primarily shape your duties. While some activities may overlap, companies engaged in medical practice, legal practice, research, financial services, education, transportation or manufacturing, for example, will require specific duties relevant to their products and services. Every company has general human resource, information collection and storage, and financial requirements that help shape the job duties. A third category of activities revolves around the support of management activities, such as scheduling meetings, preparing documents for review, writing reports and assisting with presentation materials.
Duties Related to Medical Services
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In a medical office, clinic or hospital, you will frequently be responsible for the coordination and supervision of the day-to-day medical office or department functions. These may include patient appointment scheduling, telephone communications, medical record maintenance, medical transcription, medical insurance/coding and patient billing processes. Often you may assist physicians with research that provides support in preparing reports, conference speeches and journal articles.
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Duties Related to Legal Services
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In legal offices, you are often responsible for work flow procedures and may perform many specialized tasks requiring technical terminology. You may help prepare or supervise correspondence and legal documents such as summonses, motions and subpoenas. You may assist with legal research and help teach new staff how to prepare documents for submission to the courts.
Duties In General Business Enterprises
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Administrative secretaries are often responsible for a wide range of executive support tasks that may include scheduling, tracking deliverables, coordinating travel and planning special events. You may screen and direct incoming mail and telephone calls and draft responses for official signature. You will often be assigned to monitor expenses and analyze expense trends. Also, you may support business initiatives by serving in a project support role that tracks and monitors action items and other communications.
An Effective Communicator
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As an administrative secretary, you probably serve as the information and communication center for your office. To be effective you must have good communication and organization skills. In addition to interacting with company employees at all levels, you may also represent the company to people on the outside.
Qualifications and Salary
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the salary for medical and legal administrative secretaries averages $50,000 to $62,000 a year. In other fields, the average range is $23,000 to $36,000 a year. Experience and specialized training are also factors in determining salary.
While many organizations and companies require only a community college degree to qualify for this position, medical, legal and other specialized fields usually require a four-year college degree.
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References
- Photo Credit mature businesswoman with glasses image by Brett Mulcahy from Fotolia.com
