This article will answer all your questions and also give you some resume tips to ensure you get your dream job soon! So let's dive in!
What makes a resume professional?
Professional resume guidelines:
- Third person, past tense-language
- Proofreading- remove all errors whether grammatical, spelling or factual
- Simple document label- Your full name Resume
- Compatible document format- Microsoft word or PDF
- Use as many number as possible to quantify the information
- Use action verbs to make the language more efficient and impactful
Research & formats & templates
Before beginning, research your role, industry, job duty, employers and everything relevant so that you get an idea of what is going on in the job market and how you should frame and present your resume and profile. You can also figure out what more you can offer to stand out and increase your chances of getting the job.
After research you need to choose a resume format for your administrative officer resume. You have various options such as functional, reverse chronological and hybrid or combination according to your professional experience and skills and profile.
Resume header
Information to include:
- Your name
- Contact number
- Email ID
- LinkedIn profile link
- Headshot (not mandatory)
- Home address (not mandatory)
Resume summary
Resume summary should be written in 3 to 5 bullet points and your role title. The bullet points should cover few important points such as your total years of experience, your key skills, your background, your top achievement and key job performances. At last you need to mention what kind of opportunity you are looking for and how you will contribute with your skills and experience along with your knowledge.
Work history
Your work history should include your job title, employer name, employment period and description of the experience. You need to use the bullet points for the details and describe the experiences in the reverse chronological order.
The description should be thorough with the details of all your job duties, exceptional performances, skills and results or achievements. You can also mention your contribution to the company's success or the achievement of goals and desirable results.
(Source: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/home.htm)
Education section
As an administrative officer, you can mention your bachelor's degree or high school diploma on your resume. You need to mention the full degree or course title and include the educational institute name as well. You can also include the year of passing if it has been a while however avoid the same if you are a recent graduate or a fresher.
Skills section
There are so many administrative functions and so many skills for those functions. You mention soft skills, hard skills, technical skills and administrative skills in almost every sections we discussed until now. In addition to all that, you should also highlight your top strengths in the skills section by listing them in 2 to 3 words.
- Support services
- Data entry
- Strategic planning
- Problem solving
- Microsoft office
- Microsoft office suite
- Outgoing correspondence
- Daily office operations
- Office supplies management
- Telephone calls
- Incoming mail management
- Provided administrative support
- Providing administrative support
- Office management
- Office administration
- Strategic planning abilities
- Administrative programs
- Administrative procedures
- Administrative processes
- Administrative operations
- Customer relationship management
- Handling legal documents
- Communication skills
- Property management
- Human resources
- Microsoft office suite
- Other administrative tasks
- Coordinating with senior administrative officer
- Administrative functions
- Business administration
- Administrative support
- Administrative tasks
- Project management
Extra sections
If you are looking for most effective resume tips you need to pay attention to this one! Extra sections can be created for information that may be relevant and helpful for your role but do not fall under the categories of skills, experience and education.
Such relevant information can help you stand apart and grab the recruiter's attention successfully. You can include extra sections on your resume for languages proficiency, personal interests, workshops/events/programs/online courses/training etc. information that will be value addition to your administrative officer resume.
Relevant keywords
Applicant tracking systems or the ATS are the artificial intelligence driven software that helps the recruiter with resume shortlisting. ATS operates on the basis of set parameters and these parameters are nothing else but the relevant keywords.
ATS scans and filters the resumes and job application based on the keywords presence. The relevant keyword or the job description is set as the parameters. The keywords are simply the important words related to your role, job duty, job title, industry and potential employers if you are applying to a huge company or a well established company with significant recognition.
- Administrative officer
- Administrative officers
- Administrative tasks
- Administrative support roles
- Office supplies
- Business administration
- Administrative functions
- Certified administrative professional
- Certified administrative professionals
- Office administration
- Administrative officer job
- Other administrative tasks
- Senior administrative officer
- Microsoft office suite
- Business management
- Senior management
- Dedicated administrative officer
- Human resources
- Supervising employees
- Property management
- Legal documents
- Administrative team members
- Other administrative team members
- Administrative personnel
- Expense reports
- Filing system
- Completed detailed reports
- Administrative procedures
- Office procedures
- Administrative operations
- Administration office
- Administrative officer role
- Administrative processes
- Bachelor's degree
- Administrative programs
- Office operations
- Executive office
- High school diploma
- Office management
- Provided administrative support
- Providing administrative support
- Finance department
- Microsoft office
- MS office
- Telephone calls
- Incoming and outgoing correspondence
- Incoming mail
- Daily office operations
- Microsoft word
- Federal agencies
- Senior managers
- Problem solving
- Records management
- Program personnel
- Financial statements
- Data entry
- Government agencies
- Support services
Cover letter
Cover letters are not always mandatory however they can make a huge impact. Often hiring manager ends up changing their decision after reading the cover letter because cover letter allows you to pitch your case more efficiently. Your language can be a bit more informal as opposed to your professional administrative officer resume.
You can reiterate your skills, experience, education and dedication for the role. You can also talk about how you got inspired to choose this field, how your journey has been and what are your goals moving forward in your professional career. You can reflect passion and dedication through such information and who wouldn't want to hire a dedicated administrative officer!?
References
Your credibility increases when someone else vouches for you and gives positive feedback about you as a professional. Your administrative officer resume should have extra section labeled references where you list about 3 references. When mentioning the references you need to mention their name, their designation and their contact number along with their email address.
The references should be the people that you have worked with in professional capacity, it can be your supervisor or manager or such other superior or your colleague, do not mention anyone who worked under you and you were their superior. When you mention the references, ask the chosen people first for their permission to mention them as your reference on your resume along with their private communication details such as phone number and email address.
Administrative officer skills
Most important aspect of a professional resume is how well you incorporate and highlight your skills and there are many administrative officer skills that you can write about throughout your administrative officer resumes.
There are various sections on your resume such as resume summary, experience, skills, education, extra and such in which you can talk about your administrative officer skills.
Business administration
What does an administrative officer do? Well, administration! You know better than anyone else how business administration is going to be your main area of responsibility and contribution which means you need to be well versed with the area and also be able to contribute with your own ideas, knowledge, strategies and more.
This skill should be mentioned throughout your administrative officer resumes and highlighted efficiently as well so that the recruiter can see how you are suited perfectly for the role. You can also provide examples of how you have used the skills, how you contributed to the company with this skill, how you achieved desired results and goals with this skill and how you improved things with this skill. In addition to all this, you can also highlight how you improved results with your other skills to acquire better results than expected.
Incoming and outgoing correspondence
Any correspondence whether it is digital (emails, social media communications etc.) or physical such as calls, letters and so on, you may be responsible for receiving and processing what the company receives as well as sending the responses or sending communication from the company.
Your abilities of communication, professional language and more will be tested and that is why you need good command on language, knowledge of professional conduct and ability to communicate formally through various communication mediums and channels.
Office administration & Business management
Being administrative officers you already know how important these skills are, office administration and business management are core responsibilities and tasks for your role of administrative officer which means they also need to be highlighted properly on your administrative officer resume.
You can refer to various administrative officer resume examples to see how you can mention these skills in the list of skills as well as work history etc. sections as a backing point for experience details. You can also mention them in resume summary.
Business operations
Depending on the industry of your employer company, you will be contributing to the business administration and also business operation because they go hand in hand. When you talk about this skill, you need to provide context and examples of how you have this skill and how well you can perform with it.
You can mention this skills in all the sections from resume summary to extra sections (covering skills section, work history section and education section). You can also mention it in a way where you highlight your contribution to the company's success through business operation improvements and strategic implement.
Communication skills
Most of the professions in the world require you to have communication abilities because you have to work with people and you cannot talk to your colleagues the way you talk to your family and friends. Your ability to navigate professional life, largely depends on your ability to communicate.
Along with the communication you will also need to be good at interpersonal relationships and skills to ensure you are able to work with your superiors, people who work under you and your team members as well as your clients or customers.
Customer relationship management
Administrative officers often deal with customer directly or have the responsibility to improve customer relationship. This means your skills of developing, maintaining and retaining relationships along with interpersonal skills will be tested a lot.
Your ability to manage customer relationships for long times will go a long way on your administrative officer resume and you need to showcase your skills throughout your resume in various sections. If you are not capable of customer relationship maintenance, you will not be able to perform well especially if the company you work for is B2C.
Expense reports
Administrative officer often manages finances which includes budget management, financial statements, expense reports and so on. Task of budget management requires strategic planning skills while the expense reports and statements have to be prepared in the particular formats.
This means you need to know those formats, professional standards and more. You also need the knowledge of finances so that your expense report is prepared thoroughly with all the information that matters for your clients or customers or such. A successful administrative officer resume should showcase how you created expense reports to provide detailed information on resume.
Strategic planning abilities
When you are faced with new issues and problems everyday, you need the skill of problem solving. In addition, when you realize that certain issues or tasks or problems or aspects of your work has certain routine or repetition, you will need strategic planning.
As the administrative officers you will also manage property, team, project and a lot more and there you will need strategic planning because without that you will be operating in chaos and yield no results as required by your clients or seniors or team.
Providing administrative support
Administrative officer usually works with not just one team but many teams and that requires a lot of co-operation, co-ordination and communication skills. All the teams and professionals around you will depend on you a lot for their problems and issues and matters related to administration, management and more which means you will be providing administrative support for everyone.
Being able to provide administrative support requires you to know all about key administrative tasks and other administrative tasks as well. Many administrative officer resume examples will show you how providing administrative support is mentioned in the experience or the work history section of administrative officer resume.
Problem solving
You deal with man people as an administrative officer, you also have to be good at property management, office management, team management and more and when you have so many responsibilities, you are going to face many problems arising in day to day operations.
Your role will demand that you solve the issues and you may not have any support or senior managers who can help out and that's where comes the problem solving skills. If you have the ability to solve problems with creative solutions or quick thinking or any other ways, you will be able to do your job really well.
Computer skills
As an administrative officer, you will have to do some data entry, manage documents, maintain records and what not meaning you will need to use Microsoft office suite which includes many software and you might be using other software as well.
This means you need to be able to use the software and make the best out of them and for that you will need computer skills. These skills are important for almost every profession because these days technology is used in every field.
Conclusion
In conclusion, your administrative officer resume should include all about your profile including your skills, experience, extra information. But you knew that even before you read this article. After reading this article how to ensure that your administrative officer resume has the desired impact, impresses the hiring managers enough to invite you for an interview and hire you.
All you need to keep in mind is to make sure you follow all the professional resume tips and refer to this article and the tips discussed above to present your profile so that your information grabs the attention and keeps it as well.
We have a great collection of resume examples, resume tips and templates that you must check out because we cover every profession and topics of job search and everything related! Good luck with the job hunt!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How long should my administrative officer resume be?
A standard administrative officer resume should be 1 to 2 pages long. Most people have 1 page resumes, people with a lot of experience might have 2 pages long resume. While, you should always try to avoid extending your resume to 3rd page, seasoned professionals with many many years of experience may extend their resume to 3rd page however they also try to keep it to 2 pages.
The reason for this is that long resumes do not get read properly, recruiters spend about 8 seconds on a resume in which you have to grab their attention with a compelling resume summary and then you can to ensure the resume is short enough to maintain that attention otherwise the recruiter will drop the resume without reading it entirely.
Should I include my LinkedIn profile link on administrative officer resume?
LinkedIn is one of the most prominent social media platform for networking and job search among professionals of wide range of industries, all over the world. There are many people who find jobs from LinkedIn and also make valuable connections.
Your LinkedIn profile also allows you to showcase your profile, your professional work related thoughts and contribution and more. In case your LinkedIn profile is not updated or you are not active on it, you should quickly change that.
Once your profile is carefully curated and updated with latest information of your work profile, you need to stay active on it as well. And when you have an updated profile and you are regularly active, you can mention your LinkedIn profile on your resume as it will allow you to showcase your professional presence in the world.
Why do I need a cover letter with an administrative officer resume?
Cover letters have many benefits. Cover letters allow you to address the hiring managers directly and talk about your profile in a relatively informal manner rather than the usual strictly formal language (i.e. administrative officer resume language). That means you can talk about your inspiration, journey and passion that reflect your dedication for the future roles.
You can also reiterate your skills and experience which will help you highlight them with context and allow you to showcase how the experiences have been for you personally. Cover letters can impress and convince the hiring managers to hire you or at the very least invite you for an interview because your cover letter will intrigue them.
