Administrative Skills Aren’t Just for Admin Jobs—Here’s What Everyone Needs to Know (Plus a List of Examples)
By | Regina Borsellino | www.themuse.com
As you look for jobs—particularly admin jobs such as executive assistant or office manager—you may see that employers are looking for administrative skills. And for good reason: Businesses can’t run without them. “Focusing on administrative skills can transform average companies and employees into exceptional ones,” says Muse career coach Neely Raffellini.
But what are administrative skills? Who really needs them? (Short answer: everyone.) How do you improve yours? And how do you show employers that you have them in a job search?
Administrative skills are the abilities you need to perform tasks that keep any type of business running. They “are the foundational tools that help you complete your job responsibilities,” says Muse career coach Anne Kelly. In other words, administrative skills allow you to do the tasks that support you in getting your work done. For example, scheduling meetings, writing emails, and maintaining office supply levels are all administrative skills.
Administrative positions rely primarily on administrative skills, of course, but every job requires the use of administrative skills in some capacity. For example, in order to complete their design work, a graphic designer may need to communicate with clients, schedule a meeting with stakeholders, use project management software, plan how they’re going to allot their time in a given week, and organize multiple versions of a design on their computer. If you’re trying to identify when you use administrative skills in your own job, think of those tasks you need to do, not necessarily the ones you want to do, Kelly says.
