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Administrative Assistant Resume Example (+ Template)

A copy-and-adapt admin resume with real scope numbers — calls routed, calendars managed, invoices coded — plus what to write when you have no office history.

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A strong administrative assistant resume is one page, led by a short summary, and built from bullets that attach a number to every duty: how many calendars, how many calls a week, how many invoices a month, how many people you support. Below is a complete mid-level sample you can adapt, a shorter entry-level version, a formula for each section, and the tools and certifications worth naming.

Entry-level education for secretaries and administrative assistants is usually a high school diploma or equivalent, and most people learn the specific duties over several weeks on the job (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025) — so your resume's job is to prove you can already handle the software and the volume.

Sample resume

Copy the structure, not the wording. Every number below is a placeholder for one of yours.

Mid-level administrative assistant (one page)

MAYA R. DELGADO

Columbus, OH · (614) 555-0148 · maya.delgado@email.com · linkedin.com/in/mayardelgado

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

Administrative assistant with eight years supporting clinical and professional-services teams. Currently manage calendars for six clinicians, route 90–110 calls a week, and own travel, expenses and vendor records for a 40-person site. Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Associate; Ohio notary public.

EXPERIENCE

Administrative Assistant II — Multi-specialty medical group, Columbus, OH — Mar 2022–Present - Manage Outlook calendars for 6 clinicians and the practice manager, coordinating roughly 40 internal meetings and 15 vendor visits a month across 3 sites. - Answer and route 90–110 calls a week, resolving scheduling and billing-status questions without escalating about 8 in 10. - Confirm 60–75 appointments a day by phone and text in the practice management system; rebuild the reminder script that cut same-week no-shows. - Maintain an Excel register of 300+ vendor and credentialing records with conditional formatting that flags renewals 60 days ahead. - Draft and distribute minutes for twice-monthly staff meetings (20 attendees) within 24 hours of each meeting. - Onboard 8–10 new hires a year: badge requests, system access, desk setup and first-week schedules.

Administrative Assistant — Engineering consultancy, Columbus, OH — Aug 2019–Mar 2022 - Supported 3 project managers and a team of 18, owning calendars, call screening and meeting logistics. - Booked about 20 domestic trips a quarter for 12 staff and reconciled expense reports in QuickBooks within 5 business days of return. - Formatted 15–20 client proposals a month in Word and PowerPoint from the firm's template library, holding to a 48-hour turnaround. - Reorganised a shared Google Drive of 4,000+ project files into a dated folder convention adopted by all 3 project teams. - Ordered supplies for a 40-person office and managed 5 vendor accounts, consolidating three stationery suppliers into one.

Receptionist / Office Assistant — Property management office, Columbus, OH — Jun 2017–Aug 2019 - Greeted 50+ visitors a day, logged deliveries and issued visitor badges at a 2-building site. - Took over booking for 4 conference rooms and cleared a standing backlog of double-bookings in the first month. - Sorted and distributed mail for 60 staff; operated copier, scanner, postage meter and fax.

SKILLS Microsoft Outlook (calendars, delegate access, rules) · Microsoft Word (mail merge, templates) · Microsoft Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP, conditional formatting) · PowerPoint · Google Workspace · SharePoint and Dropbox · Slack and Microsoft Teams · Zoom · DocuSign · QuickBooks (accounts payable entry) · Travel booking and expense reconciliation · Minute-taking · Confidential records handling

EDUCATION Associate of Applied Science, Office Administration — community college, Columbus, OH — 2021 High school diploma — Columbus, OH — 2017

LICENCES AND CERTIFICATIONS Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Associate, Microsoft Office 365 Apps — Certiport — 2022 Notary Public, State of Ohio — commission through 2028

Entry-level variant (no office job yet)

JORDAN PIKE

Toledo, OH · (419) 555-0132 · jordan.pike@email.com

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

High school graduate with two years in customer-facing retail and campus office work. Handled a 6-line phone system, maintained a shared booking calendar for 3 rooms, and built the spreadsheet the student office now uses for supply orders. Microsoft Office Specialist certified in Word and Excel.

EXPERIENCE

Student Office Assistant (part-time) — High school main office, Toledo, OH — Sep 2024–Jun 2025 - Answered and transferred 60–80 calls a week on a 6-line phone system and logged messages for 4 staff. - Maintained the room-booking calendar for 3 shared spaces and emailed daily confirmations. - Built an Excel supply-order tracker, replacing a paper sign-out sheet used by 12 staff. - Scanned and filed roughly 500 student records into the district's document system.

Sales Associate — Grocery retailer, Toledo, OH — Jun 2023–Aug 2024 - Served 100+ customers a shift and handled cash drawer reconciliation at close. - Trained 3 seasonal hires on point-of-sale and returns procedure.

SKILLS Microsoft Word · Microsoft Excel · Microsoft Outlook · Google Workspace · Multi-line phone systems · Data entry (55 wpm) · Scanning and filing · Cash handling

EDUCATION High school diploma — Toledo, OH — 2025

CERTIFICATIONS Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) — Word and Excel, Microsoft Office 365 Apps — Certiport — 2025

Keep one page until you have about ten years of relevant experience. Body text 10–11 pt, your name 16–18 pt, margins 0.7–1 inch on all four sides, and a single font throughout.

How to write each section

Work top to bottom. The header and summary are what a hiring manager reads in the first few seconds; the bullets are what gets you shortlisted.

1. Header

  1. Put your name on its own line at 16–18 pt, bold.
  2. On the next line: city and state, phone, email, LinkedIn if it is current. No street address, no photo, no date of birth, no marital status.
  3. Use an email address that is your name, not a nickname.
  4. Add a one-line title under the header that matches the posting — Administrative Assistant, Executive Assistant, Office Administrator. If you are applying for an administrative assistant job, do not head the resume Receptionist.
  5. Keep the whole header to 3 lines. A header that runs 5 lines deep pushes your best bullets onto page two.

2. Summary

Three or four lines, no first-person pronouns, no objective statement about what you want.

Formula: [Job title] with [X years] supporting [who, and how many] in [setting or industry]. [Two or three core duties with scope]. [Software you are strongest in]. [Certification or licence, if you have one].

Example — mid-level

Administrative assistant with six years supporting a 25-person professional services team. Own executive calendars for 3 directors, book 25 trips a quarter, and process 60–80 vendor invoices a month. Advanced Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP) and Outlook delegate management. Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) Associate.

Example — entry-level

Recent high school graduate with 18 months of front-desk and campus office experience. Handled a 6-line phone system, maintained a shared calendar for 3 rooms, and keyed 500+ records into a document management system. Certified in Microsoft Word and Excel; types 55 wpm.

3. Experience

List jobs newest first. For each: job title, employer type or name, city and state, month and year range. Then 3–5 bullets for recent roles and 2–3 for older ones.

Bullet formula: Action verb + what you did + the system or tool + the scope in admin units + the result, if you have one.

Admin units are calls per week, calendars, meetings per month, invoices per month, trips per quarter, people supported, files, events, records, turnaround time.

Example bullets you can adapt:

  • Manage Outlook calendars for 4 executives, scheduling 50–60 meetings a month across 3 time zones.
  • Answer and route 100+ calls a week on a multi-line system, taking messages for 22 staff.
  • Process 70 vendor invoices a month in QuickBooks and chase approvals to a 5-day payment cycle.
  • Book 25 domestic and 4 international trips a quarter, reconciling expense reports within one week of return.
  • Draft, proofread and distribute correspondence for a department of 30, including 12 board packets a year.
  • Take and circulate minutes for weekly leadership meetings (9 attendees) within 24 hours.
  • Maintain a Dropbox file structure of 6,000+ documents and run quarterly archiving for 5 teams.
  • Coordinate logistics for 8 client events a year, from 15 to 120 attendees, including catering and room setup.
  • Build an Excel dashboard tracking 40 service contracts, flagging renewals 90 days out.
  • Onboard 12 new hires a year: equipment requests, system access, badge and first-week schedule.

If you genuinely cannot count something, describe the scope instead: "for a 3-site clinic" or "for a 40-person office". A bullet with no scope at all reads as a job description, not an achievement.

4. Skills

Two columns or one wrapped line, 10–14 items. Split them mentally into software and office operations, and mirror the posting's wording where it is honest to do so. Name versions and depth for the big ones — "Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP)" tells a reader far more than "Excel". ONET lists Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint among the software used in this occupation, along with calendar and scheduling tools, cloud sharing tools such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Slack, and accounting software such as QuickBooks (ONET OnLine, undated). Add typing speed only if it is above about 50 wpm and the posting mentions data entry.

5. Education

One or two lines. School or college, city and state, credential, year.

  • Typical entry-level education for this occupation is a high school diploma or equivalent, and high school graduates comfortable with word processing and spreadsheets usually qualify for entry-level positions (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). ONET places the occupation in Job Zone 1–2, meaning very little to some preparation is needed (ONET OnLine, undated).
  • If you have a degree or an associate's, list it above your high school diploma. You can drop the high school line once you have a college credential.
  • No GPA unless you graduated within the last two years and it was strong.
  • Executive secretary and executive administrative assistant roles typically call for several years of related work experience rather than extra schooling (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), so route that evidence into your experience section, not here.

6. Licences and certifications

Give this its own short section near the bottom — or directly under the summary if a certification is named in the posting. Format each as: credential, awarding body, year, expiry if it has one.

  • Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS). A certification programme backed by Microsoft with multiple levels of recognition, tested hands-on inside the application, available for Microsoft Office 365 Apps and Microsoft Office 2019 (Certiport, a Pearson VUE business, undated). Name the apps you passed — Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint.
  • Notary public commission. Common and genuinely useful in law firms, title offices and clinics. Requirements, fees and renewal periods are set state by state; check your Secretary of State's office for what applies where you live and work.
  • Employer or sector training — privacy and records training in healthcare, purchasing systems in government, document management in legal. List it if it was formal and you can name it accurately.
  • Leave off anything expired, and never list a credential as "in progress" without the expected completion date.

Weak vs strong bullets

The difference is almost always a number and a system name. Same job, same truth, different evidence.

WeakStrongerWhy it works
Responsible for answering phones and greeting visitorsAnswer and route 90–110 calls a week on a 6-line system and sign in 50+ visitors a day at a two-building siteVolume tells the reader what pace you are used to; "responsible for" tells them nothing
Managed calendars for managementManage Outlook calendars for 6 clinicians and the practice manager, booking about 40 meetings a month across 3 sitesNames the tool, the number of people and the meeting load
Helped with travel and expensesBook 20 domestic trips a quarter for 12 staff and reconcile expense reports in QuickBooks within 5 business days of returnAdds frequency, headcount, system and turnaround
Good with Excel and well organisedBuilt an Excel register of 300+ vendor contracts with conditional formatting that flags renewals 60 days ahead, replacing a paper logShows the skill in use with a before-and-after, instead of asserting it

Two habits that fix most weak bullets: open with a verb in the right tense (present for your current job, past for every other), and finish the sentence by asking "how many, how often, how fast?" If none of the three applies, give the size of the group you did it for.

Skills to include

Pick 10–14 that you can defend in an interview. Important qualities for this occupation include decision-making, interpersonal, organisational and writing skills (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), and ONET lists six essential skills: active listening, speaking, reading comprehension, writing, monitoring and critical thinking (ONET OnLine, undated). Soft skills belong in bullets, not in a list of adjectives.

SkillHard or softHow to show it on the resume
Microsoft OutlookHardName calendars managed, delegate access, rules, and the number of people you schedule for
Microsoft ExcelHardName the functions you actually use — pivot tables, VLOOKUP, conditional formatting — and the tracker you built
Microsoft WordHardMail merges run, templates built, documents formatted per month
Microsoft PowerPointHardDecks prepared for meetings or client proposals, with monthly volume
Calendar and scheduling softwareHardAppointments confirmed per day, rooms or resources managed, double-booking reduced
Cloud file sharing (Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, Slack)HardFile counts migrated or reorganised, folder conventions you set, teams using them
Accounting software (e.g. QuickBooks)HardInvoices coded per month, expense reports reconciled, payment cycle in days
Database and records maintenanceHardRecords created or cleaned, retention or archiving schedules you ran
Business writing and minute-takingHardMinutes circulated within X hours, correspondence drafted for a named audience size
Phone handling and active listeningSoftCalls per week plus the share you resolved without escalating
Organisation and prioritisationSoftCompeting calendars, deadlines met, backlog cleared in a stated timeframe
Discretion with confidential informationSoftType of material handled — personnel files, patient records, contracts — not an adjective
Decision-making under interruptionSoftA call you made alone: rescheduling a board meeting, triaging a vendor dispute

Skip typing speed unless it is strong and relevant, skip "Microsoft Office" as a single blob, and never list a tool you could not open and use in front of someone.

Pay and outlook

Pay for administrative assistants is almost always an hourly rate or an annual salary set by the employer, sometimes with overtime for non-exempt roles, and it moves on a few predictable things.

  • Industry. About half of all secretaries and administrative assistants work in healthcare, education, and professional, scientific and technical services, and most work full time (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). The same job title pays differently in a law firm, a school district and a hospital.
  • Specialisation. Legal, medical and executive support roles usually sit above general administrative assistant work. Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants typically need several years of related experience (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), and that experience is what the premium is paying for.
  • Location. Rates vary widely by state and by metro area within a state, and public-sector roles often run on published pay grades you can look up before you apply.
  • Scope and headcount. Supporting one director is a different job from running the front office for a 60-person site. Put the headcount in your bullets — it is the clearest argument you have at offer stage.
  • Software depth and credentials. Advanced Excel, accounting system access, a notary commission or a Microsoft Office Specialist certification (Certiport, a Pearson VUE business, undated) give you something concrete to negotiate on.
  • Employment type. Temp, temp-to-hire and agency placements are common in this field and are structured differently from direct hire, including benefits.

For current numbers, go to the official source rather than a salary aggregator: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook page for secretaries and administrative assistants publishes the median annual wage as of May 2025 along with what the lowest 10 percent and the highest 10 percent earned (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025). For state and metro-area detail, use the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables, and check your state labor department for public-sector schedules.

On outlook: BLS projects employment for secretaries and administrative assistants to decline over 2025–35, but openings are still projected each year on average over the decade, mostly from people leaving the occupation or retiring (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Practically, that means the work is still being hired for, but the bar is shifting toward people who can run the software, handle scheduling systems and write cleanly — not just cover a desk. The BLS Quick Facts table on the same page gives the current job numbers and the projected change, and is the figure worth quoting if anyone asks.

Related guides

Next steps once the resume is done:

  • Administrative Assistant Cover Letter Example (+ Template)
  • Administrative Assistant Interview Questions and Answers
  • How to Become an Administrative Assistant With No Experience
  • Executive Assistant Resume Example (+ Template)
  • Receptionist Resume Example (+ Template)
  • Office Manager Resume Example (+ Template)
  • Data Entry Clerk Resume Example (+ Template)
  • Medical Administrative Assistant Resume Example (+ Template)
  • Microsoft Office Specialist Certification: What It Covers and Who It Helps

Frequently asked questions

What do I put on an administrative assistant resume with no office experience?

Use the entry-level layout above and mine non-office work for the same units. Retail, hospitality, warehouse, church, school and volunteer roles all involve phones, schedules, records, cash and customers — write those as bullets with numbers: calls taken per shift, rotas built, customers served, records filed, people trained. Add a skills line naming the software you can genuinely use, and sit a certification at the bottom if you have one; the Microsoft Office Specialist programme tests you hands-on inside the application and covers Microsoft Office 365 Apps and Office 2019 (Certiport, a Pearson VUE business, undated). This is a field you can enter on a high school diploma or equivalent, with duties typically learned over several weeks on the job (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025) — so the thing to prove on paper is that you are already comfortable with word processing and spreadsheets and can hold a busy desk together.

What format and file type should I use?

A reverse-chronological layout in a single column, with sections in this order: header, summary, experience, skills, education, licences and certifications. Body text 10–11 pt, headings 12–14 pt, your name 16–18 pt, margins 0.7–1 inch, and one standard font throughout. No photo, no graphics, no skill rating bars, no sidebar — they break when a system parses the file and they waste space you need for bullets. Send a PDF unless the posting or the recruiter asks for a Word document, and name the file with your name and the job title rather than 'resume_final2'. If you are applying through an agency, ask which format they forward to clients.

How long should it be?

One page if you have under about ten years of relevant experience, which covers most administrative assistant applications. Two pages is reasonable for a long executive support career with several employers worth detailing, and you should never go beyond two. If you are spilling slightly onto a second page, cut the oldest jobs down to the title, employer, location and dates, trim the summary to three lines, and delete any bullet that has no number or scope in it — that usually buys back the space without losing anything a hiring manager wanted to read.

Sources

  1. U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsSecretaries and Administrative Assistants : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics2025
  2. O*NET OnLine43-6014.00 - Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive - O*NET OnLine