Career Services

Office Technology

Executive Assistant

Nature of the Work

Executive Administrative Assistants are expected to assume responsibility, exercise initiative, and make decisions within the scope of the authority assigned to them. Duties may include scheduling, appointments, screening telephone calls, welcoming visitors, transcribing, operating office machines, filing, typing, and performing computer-related applications.

The Executive Assistant relieves the executive of administrative type functions in order to increase the time an executive has available for executive level responsibilities. May handle a wide variety of situations and conflicts involving the clerical and administrative function of the office. * May require an associate's degree or its equivalent with at least 4 years of experience in the field or in a related area. Familiar with a variety of the field's concepts, practices, and procedures. Relies on experience and judgement to plan and accomplish goals. May direct and lead the work of others. Typically reports to an executive. A wide degree of creativity and latitude is excepted.

» Executive Assistant AAS at Richland College:

Working Conditions

Office and administrative support supervisors and managers are employed in a wide variety of work settings, but most work in clean well-lit, and usually comfortable offices. Most work a standard 40-hour week. Because some organizations operate around the clock, office and administrative support supervisors may have to work nights, weekends, and holidays. Sometimes supervisors rotate among the three shifts, in other cases, shifts are assigned on the basis of seniority.

Job Outlook

Like other supervisory occupations, applicants for office and administrative support supervisor or manager jobs are likely to encounter keen competition because the number of applicants should greatly exceed the number of job openings. Employment of office and administrative support supervisors and managers is expected to grow about as fast as the average for all occupations through 2008. In addition to the job openings arising from growth, a larger number of openings will stem from the need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or leave this large occupation for other reasons. *Employment of office and administrative support supervisors is primarily affected by the demand for clerical workers. Despite an increasing amount of clerical work the spread of office automation should allow a wider variety of tasks to be performed by fewer office and administrative support workers. This will cause employment in some clerical occupations to slow or even decline, leading supervisors to have smaller staffs and perform more professional tasks. However, office and administrative support managers still will be needed to coordinate the increasing amount of clerical work and make sure the technology is applied an running properly. In addition, organizational restructuring continues to reduce some middle management positions, distributing more responsibility to office and administrative support supervisors. This added responsibility combined with relatively higher skills and longer tenure will place office and administrative support supervisors and managers among the clerical workers most likely to retain their jobs.

Earnings

Median annual earnings of full-time office and administrative support supervisors were $31,090 in 1998; the middle 50 percent earned between $23,950 and $40,250. The lowest paid 10 percent earned less than $19,060, while the highest paid 10 percent earned more than $52,570. In 1997, median earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of office and administrative support supervisors were:

Some Sites to Visit

» http://www.careersprep.com/html/ofcadmin.htm
» http://www.witc.tec.wi.us/programs/clusters/offtech.htm

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