Hiring an admin assistant for the first time?
Working with an online admin staff can significantly boost your team’s productivity. They handle administrative support like managing clerical tasks and organizing your team’s schedules.
With them taking on most routine tasks, your team can focus on managing and growing your business.
However, with so many candidates available today, how do you find the perfect admin assistant for your business?
What do their skills include?
To find the right one with the right admin support skills for your needs, here are some administrative job skills to look for.
Organizational Skills
Administrative assistants know how to prioritize tasks and keep your business’s daily activities running smoothly and efficiently.
Thus, one crucial skill you should look for when hiring an admin assistant is organizational skills.
This is key to maintaining an efficient digital filing system and calendar management.
Finally, well-organized admin assistants are great at juggling multiple tasks and producing quality work on time.
Time Management
Time is gold.
When it comes to administrative assistant skills, one must also have excellent time management skills.
This helps them schedule their tasks throughout the day, ensuring urgent ones are accomplished as soon as possible. That said, they should also be very flexible with their schedules and quick to adapt to sudden challenges.
Besides managing their schedules, they also keep your team on-task by planning your meetings, following up on tasks, and disseminating information in a timely way.
Communication Skills
Effective communication keeps everyone on the same page and is key to effective collaboration.
Apart from verbal communication skills, either in person or displayed via on-time answered phones, written communication skills are worth noting. Thus, a good administrative assistant should be able to construct clear and concise emails, memos, and documents while articulating themselves well during phone calls and online meetings. It helps if they possess a warm and friendly attitude as well, a mark of excellent interpersonal skills.
And since communication doesn’t take place only internally but also externally, customer relationship management should play a role when screening potential hires.
This is even more important for admin assistants, who must frequently communicate not just with you and your team but also with your clients.
Problem-Solving Skills
Strong problem-solving skills involve quickly identifying the source of problems as they occur and then solving them. The same goes for being able to think outside the box for solutions so they can solve problems themselves.
Aside from these, they should also be willing to adapt and learn new skills to meet evolving challenges and get the job faster.
Attention to Details
Administrative assistants should have great attention to detail since they’re responsible for data entry, scheduling, and document preparation.
This helps them maintain accuracy and thoroughness in their work, reducing the risk of errors that could lead to further costly mistakes.
Technical Proficiency
Since administrative assistants do all of their work on their computers/laptops, you need someone tech-savvy.
This way, you’ll spend less time training them to use their work-related apps and software.
Working as an administrative assistant, this person must be proficient in using Microsoft Office tools (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) or Google Workspace apps (Docs, Slides, Sheets).
They must also know how to use cloud storage apps like Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. If they’re familiar with project management apps like Trello, ClickUp, and Asana, that would be great too.
Finally, they should have experience using various online communication platforms like Skype, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
Finding & Hiring an Admin Assistant Made Easier
Hiring an administrative assistant speeds up your company’s growth by enhancing your team’s efficiency and keeping your business’s daily activities running smoothly.
By prioritizing the skills above, you’ll have an easier time finding the right admin assistant for your company.
Don’t know where to start looking for skilled administrative assistants? Click here to see our list of candidates for this and other virtual assistant roles. Good luck!
John Carlo Pagsolingan is a carefree yet hardworking writer with aspirations of becoming a teacher in the future. He believes that remote working isn’t just a substitute; but is a legitimate alternative to face-to-face work. Learn more as he writes about the advantages of remote work and tips for aspiring remote workers.
