10 Best Administrative Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume

Adding the right administrative assistant skills to your resume is crucial for landing job interviews and advancing your career in the field.

Administrative assistants play an important role in companies of all sizes. They handle the organizational work that keeps a company running each day.

To succeed in this fast-paced role, you need to demonstrate the right skills on your resume.

Here are the 10 skills that appear most often in job descriptions for administrative assistant roles:

Technical skills

Administrative assistants need various hard skills to do their jobs well.

Here are the administrative assistant hard skills employers want most, along with examples of how to show them on your resume:

Administrative skills

Administrative skills include tasks like document management, maintaining office systems, and coordinating travel.

Basic computer skills

Basic computer skills, such as using common software like Microsoft Office Suite, Google Workspace, and internal database systems, keep work moving, support accurate record-keeping, and make communication easier with teams and clients.

Call-taking

A big part of being an administrative assistant is handling inbound calls. Showing experience with a high volume of calls or client questions can improve your chances of getting a job.

Financial management

Not all administrative assistants work directly with financial management, but many handle related tasks depending on the role and industry.

Small companies may especially ask you to assist with financial management by processing invoices and tracking expenses, for example.

Soft skills

Because you’ll work with many people and keep up with a sometimes hectic daily schedule, soft skills are vital for supporting office staff and doing well as an administrative assistant.

These soft skills will make your administrative assistant resume stand out:

Independent task management

Employers want to trust you to prioritize tasks correctly, meet deadlines, and stay organized without constant oversight.

With strong independent task management skills, you’ll keep the office running smoothly, and coworkers can count on you to finish work on time.

Organizational skills

Organizational skills go hand in hand with being an administrative assistant. When you’re organized, tasks are more likely to get done on time, and important documents and information are easy to find when needed.

Attention to detail

As an administrative assistant, a big part of the job is preventing problems before they happen, and strong attention to detail is one of the best ways to do that.

Checking documents, bills, receipts, calendars, event details, mailing and email addresses, and other important information twice saves time and trouble later.

Teamwork

Knowing how to work well with others is essential for administrative assistants because the role often requires working with multiple departments to keep operations running smoothly.

Teamwork skills will help you work well with your coworkers and support the overall efficiency of the workplace.

Communication

As an administrative assistant, you’ll handle a lot of daily work that calls for excellent communication skills.

To handle this job well, you’ll need to express ideas clearly in speech and writing while staying polite and professional.

People skills

Administrative assistants often work between executives and the people an organization serves, such as clients, customers, or patients.

This means you’ll interact with a wide range of people every day, so you need great people skills.

Where to highlight administrative assistant skills on your resume

When writing an administrative assistant resume, it’s best to show your skills in two key places: the skills section and the experience section.

Skills section

The skills section of your resume should give a quick overview of your most relevant skills.

To find the most relevant skills, read the job description for your target role and note any skills-related resume keywords you see.

Focus on 5–10 hard skills that show you’re a strong admin assistant. Here’s an example of how your skills section could look:

Employers often scan resumes for these clear qualifications, and a bullet list makes them easy to spot.

Soft skills fit best in the experience section of your resume, where you can show them in context.

Experience section

The experience section shouldn’t just list responsibilities — highlight accomplishments that show your administrative skills in action.

For example, instead of saying:

“Answered a large number of phone calls every day”

Try a more results-oriented option, like:

• Answered 50+ calls per day, reducing wait times by 10% through efficient call routing

Using numbers to measure impact makes your resume more compelling and gives employers a clearer idea of what you can bring to the team.

How to develop administrative assistant skills

Here are five actions you can take to quickly build your administrative assistant skills:

1. Take online courses – Build skills like Microsoft Office, data entry, and business communication through platforms like Coursera or LinkedIn Learning.
2. Learn office technology – Become comfortable with office equipment, scheduling software, and database management systems commonly used in administrative roles.
3. Practice time and task management – Begin using calendars, task managers, or to-do lists to organize the day.
4. Seek out hands-on experience – Take on administrative responsibilities in internships, volunteer roles, or part-time jobs to gain practical experience.
5. Ask for feedback – Regularly ask supervisors or colleagues for feedback on ways to improve skills or performance on tasks.