Administration roles aren’t just about answering the phone, they are vital for businesses and have so many different duties to fulfil; such as organising schedules, dealing with customers, processing sensitive information, handling documents and much more.
By checking out our 5 tips for you to succeed in Office Admin, you can find out what it takes to be a top candidate with the skills needed to stand out to potential employers.
1) Organisation is Key
Not only are strong organisational skills needed to keep yourself organised when answering calls and filing important documents, they’re important for keeping the whole office organised. Finding an organisation system that works well for staff when it comes to organising team schedules and files is important to ensure that all the departments are working as efficiently as possible. Without a proper system, important documents are harder to find which can majorly disrupt productivity.
2) Master your communication skills
Having excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, are necessary to be successful in this industry. People in admin roles, will often be the first point of contact for employees and possibly clients. You may be tasked with handling correspondence with customers, suppliers and various partners in a professional manner, so it is important that you create the right impression. You may be responsible for writing letters or emails; so is important that you have good spelling and grammar.
Being a good communicator also means being a good listener; you’ll need to be able to listen to requests from colleagues and customer queries so you can find the right solutions for their needs.
3) Fine tune your IT skills
The ability to use Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and other platforms are highly sought after admin skills. Having the technical skills to create company reports, perform data entries, create PowerPoint presentations and update calendars gives you the opportunity to be invaluable to a business.
It is also common for business to use customer relationship management (CRM) systems, for which you would need to be able to input data needed to manage customer interaction and customer data, automate marketing, sales, and customer support. It would be an advantage to have an understanding of these operating systems when applying for such roles. If your IT skills need a bit of a boost, our Digital Hub; Clickworks has plenty of free courses to give you more confidence using IT for work.
4) Typing
Finally, for the complete set of IT skills, typing is another important skill for an administrator. Since ICT is essential for administrative staff in today’s era, so too is the ability to type quickly and accurately. Many positions don’t require a specific speed, but the general consensus believes this to be around 50 words per minute (wpm) with 100% accuracy which is slightly above The National average of 39 wpm.
If you think that your typing skills may need some improvement, there’s no need to worry. There are a variety of free online speed tests available and different typing courses to help you get up to speed and plenty of training on using Microsoft Word at Clickworks.
5) Manage your time
Because admin work is such a varied role, it can often feel like your time can be stretched across different tasks. It is crucial that your time management is up to scratch so you don’t fall behind on what you’re working on. This is where planning ahead comes in, you need to be able to plan ahead and prioritise your tasks in order of importance and how long each one will take. Deadlines must be kept to, to minimise any potential disruption across the whole business.
Unsure if this is the career for you?
If you’re still not sure, a visit to our Career Coaches might be best to talk through your skills and experience and see what types of roles could be a good fit.
In an administration role you could expect some of the following responsibilities:
• Filing
• Order Processing
• Research
• Correspondence with clients
• Collecting and inputting customer data on a CRM system
• Ordering supplies
• Scheduling calendars, appointments and events
Some of the following skills could help you succeed, but if you don’t have these skills yet, our Fast Track to an Apprenticeship programme can help you develop them:
• Good Communication skills
• Excellent use of spelling and grammar
• Computer literate
• Planning and forecasting
• Organisational skills
• Networking
• Decision Making
If you want to find out more about what this career entails, our friendly team of Career Coaches can help you onto a career path in Admin through an Apprenticeship or call us on 01744 742045 for more information.
