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Office Assistant Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for an Office Assistant position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as an Office Assistant may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of an Office Assistant and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to Office Assistant jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be an Office Assistant or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
Employers require a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Office Assistant positions. The top three keywords make up 36.15% of the total set of top terms. Look to the Resume Checklist below to see how Customer Service, Clerical Skills, and Answering Phones shares stack up against the share from resumes. Data Entry, Scheduling and Communication Skills represent an additionally healthy share of the employer Office Assistant job postings with their combined total of 32.36%. At 31.48%, MS Office, Detail Oriented, Admin Assistant, and Administrative Support appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Office Assistant skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
Job seeker resumes showcase a broad range of skills and qualifications in their descriptions of Office Assistant positions. The top three keywords represent 42.45% of the total set of top resume listed keywords. Look to the Resume Checklist below to investigate how Customer Service, Scheduling, and Data Entry match up to employer job descriptions. MS Office, Microsoft Excel, and Communication Skills represent a very decent share of skills found on resumes for Office Assistant with 29.08% of the total. At 28.47%, Receptionist, Answering Phones, Invoicing, and Detail Oriented appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Office Assistant skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be an Office Assistant as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in Office Assistant job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of Office Assistant on their resumes.
Top Office Assistant Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
Customer Service 12.93%
Clerical Skills 11.86%
Answering Phones 11.36%
Data Entry 10.80%
Scheduling 10.78%
Communication Skills 10.78%
MS Office 9.19%
Detail Oriented 9.09%
Admin Assistant 8.50%
Administrative Support 4.70%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
Customer Service 18.93%
Scheduling 12.23%
Data Entry 11.29%
MS Office 10.95%
Microsoft Excel 10.05%
Communication Skills 8.08%
Receptionist 7.44%
Answering Phones 7.42%
Invoicing 7.07%
Detail Oriented 6.54%

Office Assistant Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for Office Assistant positions. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within Office Assistant job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Office Assistant Resumes
We did not find any skills or qualifications that were common on Office Assistant job descriptions, but uncommon on Office Assistant resumes.
Common Keywords on Office Assistant Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Admin Assistant
Clerical Skills
Answering Phones
Administrative Support
Detail Oriented
Communication Skills
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the position of Office Assistant tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Admin Assistant, Clerical Skills, Answering Phones, Administrative Support, Detail Oriented or Communication Skills in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a candidate you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as an Office Assistant.
Uncommon Keywords on Office Assistant Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Accuracy
Calendaring
Faxing
Data Entry
Database
Multi Tasking
Scheduling
MS Office
Outlook
Scanning
Customer Service
Invoicing
Receptionist
Collaboration
Technical
English Speaking
Employer job listings infrequently list Accuracy, Calendaring, Faxing, Data Entry, Database, Multi Tasking, Scheduling, MS Office, Outlook, Scanning, Customer Service, Invoicing, Receptionist, Collaboration, Technical or English Speaking as important skills or qualifications in Office Assistant job descriptions. Nevertheless, candidates mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for an Office Assistant position may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Office Assistant Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important Office Assistant job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Admin Assistant, Clerical Skills, Answering Phones, Administrative Support, Detail Oriented and Communication Skills. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a position as an Office Assistant, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as an Office Assistant.

What are the least important Office Assistant job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently terms like Accuracy, Calendaring, Faxing, Data Entry, Database, Multi Tasking and Scheduling may be something to reconsider. These 7 terms appear 2.15, 2.15, 2.25, 2.53, 2.70, 2.73 and 2.74 times less frequently, respectively, than in job descriptions for an Office Assistant role. This implies that highlighting any of these keywords on your resume may not be a great way to get noticed by a potential employer.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for an Office Assistant position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of Office Assistant. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Admin Assistant
  • Clerical Skills
  • Answering Phones
  • Administrative Support
  • Detail Oriented
  • Communication Skills
Finally people who held the position of an Office Assistant and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your Office Assistant application:
  • Accuracy
  • Calendaring
  • Faxing
  • Data Entry
  • Database
  • Multi Tasking
  • Scheduling
  • MS Office
  • Outlook
  • Scanning
  • Customer Service
  • Invoicing
  • Receptionist
  • Collaboration
  • Technical

Before applying for an Office Assistant job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as an Office Assistant. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!