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Office Assistant Job Description Template

When an office assistant position opens up at your company, you are highly likely to receive dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes from people of all experience levels. You may get people who are incredibly qualified for the job while others lack the basic qualifications to succeed. It would be a lot simpler if the people who were clearly not qualified did not apply in the first place. You can do a lot in that endeavor by creating a job description that accurately details what is expected in this job. If someone understands what responsibilities will need to be performed and what skills are expected, then he or she will know whether it is worth his or her time to submit a resume. Any business owners or recruiters looking for some pointers should check out our office assistant job description sample to get ideas for their own.

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Office Assistant Job Summary

You will be tasked with performing various tasks around the office. While every day will be different, you should expect to run errands and carry out basic office functions like filing and typing out documents.

Office Assistant Job Responsibilities and Duties

  • Answer the phone and address any questions or concerns customers have or forward the call to the appropriate person
  • Confirm orders and keep customers up-to-date about the status of their orders
  • Maintain supplies and equipment, order new supplies when needed so that inventory remains fully stocked
  • Clean equipment and troubleshoot issues as they arise
  • Collect mail and deliver it to the recipient
  • Deliver and pick up items in the company car
  • Maintain executives’ schedules and inform executives when meetings or other big events are taking place
  • Type up correspondences, press releases and anything else needed

Office Assistant Skills and Qualifications

  • High school diploma
  • Professional phone etiquette
  • Written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to multitask and prioritize responsibilities
  • Ability to type 75 wpm

Company Profile

Johnson Fine Art Consulting has been doing business in Seattle since 1999. We work with some of the finest painters in the state, and we deal with a wide array of clients. We are looking for an office assistant to join our team and really contribute something to the organization while learning valuable skills and making great connections.

Writing a Job Description Best Practices

  • There may be completely different responsibilities you have in mind for your assistant position that are not covered in this office assistant job description sample. You will obviously need to customize your company’s listing to meet your needs, and while you are writing it, make sure it follows these handy rules.

    • Do limit yourself to a maximum of 10 bullet points under the responsibilities section. Your office assistant will likely do a lot more than those 10 duties while working for you, but you do not want your job description to be a huge list. Stick to the tasks that will be most relevant.
    • Do give the address for your business, or at the very least, you should include a link to your website that has all the relevant information. This will let interested job seekers know what their commute would be like.
    • Do clearly state what needs to be submitted. If all you are interested in is receiving a resume, then say so. That way you are not inundated with a bunch of cover letters or other superfluous materials. However, if you are interested in getting cover letters, then explicitly state that. You want to make it as easy as possible for candidates to send materials your way.
    • Do discuss the job description with your current or former office assistant. He or she will tell you if there is a task that was done with great frequency that you left off. Your company’s office assistants will also tell you if there is a skill they wish they had before they received the job at first.
    • Do determine if you are at liberty to discuss salary within the job description. It may be best to wait until the interview process to start discussing wages. However, you should see what benefits and perks you can discuss. If there is something worthwhile you can offer an office assistant, then you will entice more qualified people to apply.
    • Do not use SEO poorly. Search engines penalize pages that fill an article to the brim with keywords, so use them wisely.

      With these tips in mind, you are in good shape to write a great description.

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Office Assistant Job Responsibilities

If you aren’t enthusiastic about your hiring prospects, jobseekers won’t be either. Just writing a standard job description with block paragraphs detailing exhaustive lists of duties isn’t enough. To really attract the right candidates, you need a meaty office assistant job description crafted to appeal only to the most qualified jobseekers.

To do that, you should remember that less is more. Replace those overstuffed paragraphs with a short bullet list. Create a sense of enthusiasm and involvement by writing in action-oriented style, beginning each sentence with an action verb. Condense those blow-by-blow breakdowns of each minute of each day into high-level summary descriptions that touch only on the most relevant details. Remember, this office assistant job description doesn’t just represent this single role, but also your corporate culture. How you communicate job functions and duties tells jobseekers a good deal about the company’s general communication style and whether or not they’ll be a solid match.

Here are some example bullets detailing office assistant job responsibilities

  • Maintain a welcoming, customer-friendly office environment
  • Review and distribute inbound mail and correspondence
  • Support project managers in project tracking and materials preparation
  • Assist executives with calendar management, scheduling and correspondence
  • Undertake general administrative and secretarial functions
Office Assistant Job Specifications

Just a list of job responsibilities isn’t enough to simplify your screening process. To really refine your applicant pool, you need to add a list of job specifications to your office assistant job description. This list covers the essential traits a successful candidate possesses and ideally should take after detailed conversations with current team members and managers the office assistant works with. You’ll likely find a great deal of overlap in what different personnel consider to be necessary for a good office assistant, and those commonalities can help you narrow your list down to four or five essential specifications.

Format your specifications the same way as your office assistant job description, using a succinct, simple bullet format candidates can review quickly. Although jobseekers will read the job responsibilities to determine if they want to perform a job, the job specifications list acts as a sort of self-check to determine whether they can do the job. This self-check often stops unqualified applicants at the gate, saving you the time of rejecting yet another submission that falls short.

The following list provides a sample of office assistant job specifications:

High school education minimum, two-year or four-year degree preferred Exceptional organizational skills Able to prioritize multiple concurrent tasks Thrives in a demanding, high-pressure environment Able to lift objects weighing 10 lbs. or fewer

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Writing Your Office Assistant Job Description: Dos and Don’ts

There are a few more pointers for writing a solid job description. Here are some easy-to-remember dos and don’ts for the next time you have a listing to write.

• Do not discuss minor tasks that your office assistant will hardly ever do.
• Do use bullet points in the appropriate sections, which would include responsibilities and skills.
• Do keep the overall length brief. You do not want your description running over 700 words.
• Do include a call to action at the end of the listing.
• Do mention salary and health benefits if your company allows it.

Job seekers may still have questions after reading your job description, but for the most part, you want to ensure that all the relevant material they need is right there on the page.