How to Become a Project Secretary
Most project secretaries work in the construction and oil and gas industries. Any company, however, that assumes the duties of bidding for and fulfilling contracts for any type of project will require the services of a project secretary. Project secretaries play a vital role in the successful completion of any project. They are responsible for keeping a project diary, assisting with progress reports, producing manpower summary reports and many other clerical tasks. Read on to learn more.
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Instructions
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Become a Project Secretary
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Study bookkeeping and accounting when you decide to become a project secretary. On large projects, a project secretary assists the project accountant with payroll, paying vendors and suppliers, maintaining cost reports and checking accounts and utilizing job cost procedures. On small projects, the project secretary may be responsible for all of the accounting duties.
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Take a secretarial course or get an associate's degree in office procedures at a community college. To become a project secretary, you must have excellent keyboarding and data entry skills, be proficient in Microsoft Office and other computer software specific to the industry. You must also know how to organize and maintain an office.
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Start by seeking an entry-level clerical job in a project manager's office. Many project secretarial positions in the construction industry require prior job and construction experience. To "learn the ropes" of the construction industry and learn your way around projects, begin on the ground floor and work your way up doing basic tasks for the office project staff like answering phones, taking messages, filing and distributing messages.
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Study a foreign language. There are project secretary positions available worldwide. If you like to travel, have a sense of adventure and enjoy new experiences, being bi-lingual will make you a good candidate for employment opportunities in other countries.
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Be open to making a move to a new city or state. Large companies with the best opportunities for career advancement are usually located in large cities.
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Search for project secretary jobs in the construction industry on a website like ConstructionJobs.com, where you can review job openings nationwide (see Resources below).
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Tips & Warnings
If you become a project secretary, make sure that you look good in a hard hat and enjoy working in an outdoor environment. Project secretaries often have to spend some time out on the job site with the construction workers.
