Administrative Assistant - Kinds of Administrative Assistants

Kinds of Administrative Assistants

The term "administrative assistant" can be a formal title, or it can be a general description of an employee's function in an office. Depending on the kind of work a person does, there are many variations of job descriptions that fall under this role:

• Employees with the title of Administrative Assistant generally provide support to specific departments or teams in a company (such as Human Resources, Accounting, Development, Sales and Marketing or Information Technology). In small companies, a single "admin" can potentially provide support for everyone in the office.
• Secretaries or Executive Assistants provide support to individual (usually high-ranking) company executives or small groups of executives. Their responsibilities often include handling more private or sensitive corporate and personal information than other employees.
• The main job of a Receptionist is to answer the telephone and take messages for an office or a department, and also to greet visitors to the office.
• Project Assistants provide support to specific projects in a company (e.g. activities that have a defined goal and end-point).
• Personal Assistants provide support for a specific individual, and their responsibilities often include taking care of non-office related tasks, such as running personal errands.
• Clerks often provide office support that is confined to one or two specific tasks, such as filing or data entry.
• Accounting Assistants provide support to a company's finance, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable departments. Employees in these positions tend to have more specialized knowledge of accounting and finance.
• Production Assistants provide support for people and groups in film and television production.