Regardless of what level you have reached in your Secretarial or Admin career and regardless of which sector you are working in there are a number of key competencies that you should be able to demonstrate in a Secretarial CV, Administrator CV or a Personal Assistant CV.
Put simply key competencies are the skills you possess which demonstrate your ability to do the job and these key competencies should be emphasised throughout your Secretarial or Admin CV.
Listed below you’ll find a list of key competencies for those pursuing a secretarial/admin/personal assistant career.
Depending on what level you have reached in your career (and which sector you work in) you’ll find that a couple, some or many of these competencies can be used in your Secretarial CV or you Administrator CV.
• Good communications skills, written and oral
• Excellent computer skills, word, excel
• Numerate
• Practical approach to work
• Independent
• Reliable
• Proactive
• Customer/client focused
• Ability to work independently (as needed)
• Ability to liaise with others in team
• Positive team player who can contribute to the team
• Target driven
• Professional in interactions with colleagues and customers.
• Experience of a busy office environment
• Ability to deal with customer queries via the customer phone and via e mail
• Ability to liase with internal/external customers and suppliers
• Ability to respond to customer queries in a timely and efficient manner
• Ability to process orders and to offer sales support
• Provide contact for stock control and ordering
• Provide support to designated manager/director
• Reliable
• Professional Phone manner
• Pays attention to detail/meticulous
• Excellent punctuality and professional presentation
Once you have decided which of the key competencies fit best with your experience then you can start to build them into your CV. Remember you need to provide solid, real life examples to prove those key competencies. It is not enough to say you can do something you must be able to verify your claims.
Your CV is your own individual marketing tool – you are selling yourself to the employer and as such the language you use in your CV is critical.
The following is a list of ‘good’ selling words and words that help to highlight your strengths, when used to describe a skill that you hold or a task that you have achieved.
Overcame
Contributed
Won
Instigated
Reorganised
Developed
Accomplished
Demonstrated
Delivered
Persuaded
Established
Led
These words are ‘extra boosting’ selling words. These words serve to really emphasise a skill or achievement.
Enthusiastically
Quickly
Consistently
Effectively
Decisively
Assertively
Positively
Resourcefully
Creatively
Capably
Efficiently
Successfully
Of course with all CVs the golden rules still apply
No longer than 2 sheet of A4 paper
No spelling mistakes
Simple, clear formatting
Keep your CV concise
Don’t lie
Find more CV tips & advice here
IrishJobs.ie has been helping people find the job they want for over 20 years. Our team is delighted to share our job hunting tips and advice with you.