How to Write an Administrative Clerk Resume

Having said that, your administrative clerk resume includes tasks like attending phone calls, filing documents, correspondence, liaisoning, record keeping, inventories, office supplies, conducting meetings, arranging travel & accommodation, and supervising junior-level employees.

The bottom line is - an admin clerk is the jack of all trades.

To perform such a wide variety of daily tasks you need to be tech-savvy and it must reflect on the resume so that the hiring manager can make an informed decision.

Normally a high school diploma or equivalent qualification is what you need, however, applicants with a degree and similar work experience are given preference.

Therefore, if you are looking to enhance your opportunities for selection in the next big organization then you are reading the right stuff.

Let's get started by making you familiar with how this comprehensive guide will help you.

• How to make an administrative clerk's resume?
• Examples of resumes and formats
• Tips to optimize individual sections
• Administrative clerk resume sample
• Listicles of important pointers in a clerk resume

If you find resume writing a little intimidating then use our readymade resume templates. Using our template is a breeze. It's an automated three-step process, fill in your details, and done. Your administrative resume is ready!

However, if you chose to write an administrative clerk resume for yourself then stay with us on this guide till the end. Moreover, we have a huge collection of industry-specific resume examples for reference. Click the links to browse.

6 Resume Examples for Your Reference

We have handpicked the following resumes that are more or less similar to an administrative clerk resume. Click the links to read.

• Executive Assistant Resume Example
• Data Entry Resume
• Personal Assistant Resume
• Customer Service Resume Example
• Administrative Coordinator Resume Sample
• Office Administrator Sample Resume

Administrative Clerk Resume Example

Refer to the sample resume that exactly shows what an administrative clerk resume should look like. You can follow this example while writing your resume.

CORRECT

Daniel Lavine

Admin Clerk

+1 614-324-3352

daniellavine@example.com

Bakersfield, CA

Professional Summary

Experienced admin clerk with 6-plus years of working background that can add value to given tasks. Progressive mindset, capable of multitasking, focus on detail, and result-oriented. Highly efficient in Microsoft Office, digital communication, QuickBooks & Zoho Books software. Independent, self-motivated, and quick learner seeking employment in Sailing Winds Corporation.

Experience

Almond Cloth Prints

Bakersfield, CA

Sr. Administrative Clerk

January 2019-Present

• Greeting clients with enthusiasm by visiting the office for samplings
• Scheduled meetings and rendered assistance in taking notes
• Trained in filing, intercoms machines, copying, faxing, and emailing
• Booked accommodation & transportation for visiting clients for samples
• Printing vouchers and filing them for tax-regulated queries & follow-ups
• Reconciled head office bank transactions with bank accounts in Microsoft excel
• Dispatching business transactions reports to senior management in timely manner

Cocons Kitchenware

Bakersfield, CA

Jr. Administrative Clerk

June 2016-December 2018

• Proofreading printing materials of kitchenware items for new products
• Summarizing meeting details and incorporating them as per the department's needs
• Devised a new record-keeping system that increased work efficiency by 2x
• Introduced a new apprentice evaluation process to mark output and performances
• Used Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, and PowerPoint for office documentation
• Know how to use the google text-to-speech feature for important dictations
• Screening incoming and outgoing invoices and coordinating with the accounts section

Education

Master’s degree in Commerce, 2019-2021

Bakersfield University, CA

Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, 2014-2017

Adams Commerce College

Bakersfield, CA

Skills

• Knowledge of office equipment
• Efficient in handling office procedures
• Strong administrative support skills
• Good communication skills
• Positive attitude
• Interpersonal skills
• Account management
• Advanced computer proficiency
• Expert in electronic filing systems
• Competent correspondence skills

Job Skills Certificates (JSC)

• General Business Job Skills Certificate, 2018
• Office Job Skills Certificate, 2018

How to Make an Administrative Clerk Resume (all by yourself)

Being an administrative clerk you are a highly organized individual when it comes to professional life. Needless to say, the same attitude must resonate in your clerk resume as well.

For instance, along with required academic qualifications, the resume must also display clerical and technical strengths. To help you craft an engaging admin clerk resume here are some handy tips.

• Keep your clerk resume limited to only 1-page.
• Follow the resume format and structure discussed here.
• Eliminate stylish fonts, colors, and unwanted details.
• Highlight skills and core strengths
• Use a separate space to list computer certificates.
• Integrate keywords in the work experience section.

These are a few general guidelines that you must follow while drafting your administrative clerk resume.

Hold on, there’s more. Continue reading.

After general directions, let’s examine individual sections of your admin clerk resume in detail.

The Layout of an Administrative Clerk Resume

The layout of an admin clerk resume helps hiring managers to systematically maneuver through your details. Therefore, the layout of the resume holds particular importance.

The Flow of Admin Clerk Resume Layout

• Header (with brief personal details)
• Professional summary
• Experience
• Education
• Skills
• Certificates

This should be the ideal layout of your resume. Now let’s discuss the format aka structure of the resume.

Format of an Administrative Clerk Resume

The format in your resume is connected with the experience section. In other words, there’s a predefined format for organizing the work experience in an admin clerk resume.

Here’s what you will do.

Functional, reverse chronological, and hybrid are three major formats to align experience.

• The functional resume format is skill-based.
• The reverse chronological format arranges work experience in reversed order.
• A hybrid resume format is a mixture of skills & experience.

So, which format is best for an admin clerk resume?

We recommend the reverse chronological format. It enlists your current experiences first and then the later ones.

Chronologically arranged work history gives updated info about the latest experience to hiring managers.

The Header of an Administrative Clerk Resume

The header of a resume normally contains personal information. Write your name, job title, phone number, and email address.

You can also include your location instead of a detailed address with street numbers or pin codes. Refer to the examples below.

Examples of Resume Headers for Admin Clerk

CORRECT

Daniel Lavine

Admin Clerk

+1 614-324-3352

daniellavine@example.com

Bakersfield, CA

INCORRECT

Daniel Lavine

Admin Clerk

+1 614-324-3352

daniellavine@example.com

2B, Pine Street, Hammer’s Garage

Bakersfield, CA

January 14, 1988

December 31, 2001

There are a few takeaways from the above examples. Let’s discuss them.

Give relevant details only, you can eliminate the job title & location altogether. Skip unnecessary dates. Refer to the incorrect example. Two dates are mentioned but the purpose is unclear.

Hiring managers might be interested in knowing which part of the country you live in but not the exact address. Hence, avoid writing because you have already given your phone number and email address.

Professional social media profile links are permitted here. That’s okay if you don't have one, it’s not mandatory.

Should I send a photo with my administrative clerk resume?

Hiring managers strictly don’t shortlist candidates based on a photo. They follow an unbiased hiring process free of race, gender, age, and appearance. The short answer is don't send your photo.

Professional Summary in an Administrative Clerk Resume

A professional summary is written in three distinct ways and they depend on the work experience of a candidate.

For instance, highly experienced candidates. The summary will have their achievements, expertise, and background working with different companies.

However, junior-level admin clerks will have lesser experience compared to the senior administrative clerk. It’s their learning phase & still, there’s a lot more to achieve.

Whereas, a fresher (without experience) falls on the opposite end of this spectrum. Under those circumstances, they should write an objective instead of a professional summary.

Let’s understand this using two examples.

CORRECT

An administrative clerk with strong communication skills having 7-plus years of experience in administrative functions related to the manufacturing industry wants to join Prime Garments. Result-oriented organization skills. Remarkable incoming and outgoing correspondence. Timely manner work completion & positive attitude.

Efficient in managing schedules while executing general office duties.

INCORRECT

Experienced administrative clerk. Have knowledge of administrative functions. Can handle incoming and outgoing mail. Word processing ability. I know data entry, word processing, Microsoft office, general office procedures, soft skills, doing multiple tasks, travel arrangements, ms office suite, Microsoft excel, account management, etc. I can also communicate effectively over the phone.

The vagueness in the above example (the one in red) is visible. If you look closely the second example contains straightforward keywords. Although, using them is acceptable but let alone these keywords won’t work.

Write incoming and outgoing correspondence instead of writing - handling calls.

Professional Summary in Administrative Clerk Resume for Inexperienced

If you are a fresher and just beginning your career then you must read this.

For inexperienced candidates, a resume objective is a substitute for a summary.

CORRECT

An ambitious commerce graduate with excellent knowledge of office procedures and other standard office equipment. Knowledge of business transactions. Ready to take on the responsibilities of an administrative clerk at (company name) to render administrative support.

Use the above sample in your clerk resume.

Professional Experience in an Administrative Clerk Resume

There’s a predefined method to write professional experience.

The same has been already discussed while explaining the layout of an administrative clerk resume.

A reverse chronological format is what we will use to write the work experience. Therefore, let’s get straight to the point. Refer to the points below.

Guidelines to Write Work Experience in Resume

• Use the reverse chronological format. Start with the latest one.
• Support achievements with tangible examples. Use numbers.
• Figures establish credibility. Hence, use them when applicable.
• Write what responsibilities you were assigned.
• Mention innovative methods, systems, or strategies you introduced.

Recruiters mostly scan the experience section hence making it worth reading. Refer to the examples below.

Examples of Professional Experience of an Administrative Clerk (Pharma)

CORRECT

January 2016-March 2020

STPL Pharmaceuticals

Bakersfield, CA

• Developed OPS system to ensure office procedures are correctly followed
• Labeled office equipment to minimize theft & increase productivity
• Introduced Gmail features to sort incoming and outgoing mail
• Answering phones & replying to incoming mail from vendors
• Alphabetically organized filing system to save time
• Dispatching administrative records to appropriate personnel
• Filing customer accounts paper, medical records & employee records
• Organizing incoming phone calls, confidential information & data entry records

INCORRECT

January 2019-Date

STPL Pharmaceuticals

Bakersfield, CA

• Gave administrative support to the company
• Managed incoming and outgoing mail
• Data entry work with answering phones
• Administrative clerk job
• Basic computer skills with word processing
• Administrative knowledge
• Interpersonal skills
• Administrative support experience

Again the second example ambiguously shows unfurnished information. Just a bunch of key phrases to impress the hiring manager. Whereas the first one clearly explains how a candidate employed his/her skills to get work done.

Let’s take one more example of the work experience of an administrative clerk in an employment exchange.

Examples of Professional Experience of an Administrative Clerk (Recruitment)

CORRECT

March 2010-December 2012

Work Charge Jobs

Bakersfield, CA

• Professional resume sorting and forwarding to panel recruiters
• Mailing professional resume templates to new candidates
• Forwarding incoming mail from candidates to the selection panel
• Live testing custom resume builder & reporting problems to developers
• Sorting candidate’s incoming mail to resume counselors
• Efficiently organizing outgoing mail to ensure proper delivery
• Communicate effectively with new candidates to attract sales
• Rendered smooth administrative support to the staff members

INCORRECT

March 2010-December 2012

Work Charge Jobs

Bakersfield, CA

• Answering phones of all in a timely manner
• Data entry work done by resume builder
• Microsoft office, microsoft word, basic computer skills
• Applicant tracking system & good organization skills
• Performed general office procedures
• Mainted administrative records
• Travel arrangements are done for everybody
• Strong communication skills, interpersonal skills, soft skills, etc.

You must spend three-fourths of your time writing and optimizing this section. The reason being the experience section attracts more eyeballs than any other detail in your resume.

CORRECT

📌 Successfully converted 300+ free customer accounts to premium ones.

INCORRECT

⚠️ Managed customer accounts

Education Details in an Administrative Clerk Resume

The educational requirements of an administrative clerk are altogether different from a marine engineer. It is because their field of work is heavily distinguished.

To put it simply, an administrative clerk can be a graduate of art, business, science, or commerce stream.

Although a postgraduate degree is not required, a bachelor’s degree or a high school diploma is still needed. It’s quite easy. So, here’s how to write educational details in your resume.

Examples of Academic Details in an Administrative Clerk Resume

Skills in an Administrative Clerk Resume

There are reasons why we call admin clerks masters of all trades. The reason is their ability to perform a variety of tasks. In short, multitasking.

Now, this multi-tasking capability comes from skills that they have acquired over time.

Hence, we have compiled a list of skills that hiring managers would want in an administrative clerk resume.

Technical & IT Skills (Hard Skills)

• Word Processing (per minute)
• Microsoft office (Microsoft word, excel & powerpoint)
• Calendar management
• Incoming and outgoing correspondence
• Phone and email correspondence
• Handling multi line phone system
• Filing, copying, scanning, and printing documents
• Multimedia file management

Soft Skills

• Strong communication skills
• Time management
• Leadership qualities
• A keen eye for details
• Teamwork
• Problem-solving
• Administration skills
• Quick learner

Additional Sections to Boost Your Administrative Clerk Resume

There’s a lot of room in your resume to get noticed, and an additional section is one of them. But before that, it’s important to know what they are.

An admin clerk can be qualified in multiple skills including technical and non-technical. Although we have mentioned some of them in the skills section still they need to be elaborated on with specific titles.

IT Skills

This is one of the most desired expertise companies are looking for in a candidate. If you have them then it’s time to flaunt and brag about it.

Make a separate segment for computer literacy or IT skills in your resume. List the following competence that is applicable.

• Keyboard typing speed (45 to 55 words per minute)
• Microsoft office suite
• Word processing tools (microsoft word & google docs)
• Data management in microsoft excel & google sheet
• Google tools (for example text-to-speech)
• Web browser compatibility (chrome, firefox, safari, internet explorer)
• Social media management
• Communication tools (skype, zoom, google duo)
• Online meeting & conference management
• Project management tools
• Creating presentations
• Using free online video editors
• Online image editing tools (canva)
• Emailing (gmail, outlook, hotmail, yahoo mail)
• Video downloading & uploading
• File management in google drive
• Multimedia file transfer (wetransfer)

Imagine someone who knows all of the above!👆

Pick all those things from the list above and put them in your administrative clerk resume.

Summary: Administrative Clerk Resume

We have almost finished writing the resume. Here’s the summary of the administrative clerk resume post if you have arrived directly to this section.

• Start with your name, contact number, email, and job title.
• Draft a professional summary that shows your accomplishments.
• Compile your work experience in reverse chronological order.
• State your education, for instance, degree, university name, and year of graduation.
• List your skills viz hard, soft, IT, technical, etc.
• Include certificates. Mention the course & name of the institute.
• Add a section to boost your resume.

Cover Letter to Send with an Administrative Clerk Resume

Companies nowadays seldom ask for a cover letter. But if they specifically mention sending one with your resume then do it.

A cover letter is an opportunity to appeal to the recruiter, giving reasons as to why they should hire you.

Now if you don’t know how to write a cover letter then we have ready-to-use cover letter templates. Go through the samples and select the one that suits you.

For example, we have an administrative assistant cover letter with examples & tips. Use it because it matches the admin clerk field.

FAQs

What are the key responsibilities of an administrative clerk?

As an administrative clerk, you will be handling multiple tasks like document filing, operating printers, scanners, and copiers, performing e-mail correspondence, answering phones, and doing other administrative functions. Additionally, an admin clerk may also be asked to order supplies, schedule deliveries, or do data entry work. For example, if you are working in the sales department then you might have to communicate effectively with potential customers to attract sales.

What questions are asked in an administrative clerk interview?

Mostly the set of questions that recruiters ask a candidate in an administrative clerk interview are related to office administration. For example, what computer skills do you have? Are you familiar with management tools? Can you make travel & accommodation bookings? Why do you want this job?

What is the most important skill of an administrative clerk?

An administrative clerk must have two crucial competencies. Firstly, the ability to solve problems at the workplace. It is because staff members or customers come to them with problems. Hence, they are the first point of contact. Secondly, an admin clerk must be a critical thinker. There are new problems every day that require exceptional solutions.