An important part of Office Skills training is learning how to create an office skills resume that you can use in your job search. Creating an office skills resume in the 21st Century is a whole different ball game than it was in the not so distant past. Today, your office skills resume no longer goes straight to the recruiter or hiring managers desk but most likely into into a resume database. If your resume is not prepared properly with the specific keywords and phrases for your target job description, you may just never get found in the resume database and consequently get no interviews and job offers.

What are Office Skills?

Office Skills are essential employability competencies that administrative office professionals must possess to perform professionally and efficiently the daily duties required of an administrative professional. Administrative professionals’ titles can vary from office assistant, administrative assistant, secretary, administrative associate to executive assistant.  Executive assistants tend to support just one or two executives whereas department secretaries may be responsible for supporting a whole department of professionals.

The demand for administrative professionals continues to be strong in all industries and offices around the world.  Administrative professionals continue to be the lifeblood of an organization and are relied upon by many employees throughout the company.

What are the Top Office Skills in Demand in 2023?

For the Administrative Professional who wants to get ahead in the 21st century, basic office skills competency is no longer enough.  It’s now important that Administrative Professionals not only be technically savvy but also socially competent. Having the soft skills necessary to be able to communicate clearly and get along with their coworkers, colleagues, supervisors and clients is now more essential than ever.

Todays employers are looking for workers who have a combination of technical (hard) skills and interpersonal (soft) skills which are your ability to communicate effectively with your co-workers and to get along with your colleagues and other people.  Also, maintaining a good attitude and being a team player is essential to your success as a valued employee.   Some basic office skills that that are in big demand in 2023 are:

1. Basic computer competency. Have an understand of how to operate a computer, use the keyboard and mouse, basic document creation, and working with files and folders.
2. Proficiency in Office applications such as Microsoft 365 like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Google Docs and open source office suites like LibreOffice.
3. Web Applications – If you commonly use Web Apps such as Cloud Storage Services for backing up data such as DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box or Google Apps such as Gmail and Google Docs, include them on your resume.
4. Communication Skills : Administrative Professionals need strong communication skills to effectively collaborate with a variety of people and job functions, accomplishing tasks of moderate to high complexity and scope. Administrative Professionals may also be required to keep their team’s business operations and activities organized and moving forward. They’ll need to be self-starters who can recognize where processes can be improved and who will take the initiative to improve them.
5. Good Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills – Administrative Assistants, particularly Executive Administrative Assistants, must also possess strong business judgment, professional etiquette and organizational, analytical and problem-solving skills to be able to interact with high-level executives both inside and outside of the company.
6. Good Time Management Skills – In addition to doing the more traditional tasks such as managing correspondence, office budgets and space planning, moderating office calendars and communication, creating and maintaining office policies and procedures and organization of office events, the Administrative Professional must manage their time well and acquire a thorough knowledge of their company culture, structure and products and services to be able to effectively analyze and anticipate the needs of their managers, team members and their projects.
7. Being Adaptable and Flexible – Adaptability is a sought-after soft skill in the 21st Century workplace as it shows that the administrative professional can adapt to new technology trends and ever-changing company processes and customer needs.  Adaptability rates right up there along with other highly desirable hard and soft skills and some employers state that people who are highly adaptable are actually considered more valuable employees than those who are highly skilled but less adaptable.
8. Being a Team Player – There will be many times in your career as an administrative professional that you will be required to work in collaboration with other administrative staff or employees who are assigned a task or goal for which the team must work together to arrive at a solution or recommendation. Teamwork is an extremely important soft skill which ranks up there with communication. In order to be an effective team player, you will need to be able to communicate well with your manager and other team members.

Putting your Office Skills Resume Together

Depending on your years of experience, there may be a couple, to at least half a dozen different office skills jobs you could do. However, to create a good office skills resume suitable for todays job climate, you need to first decide on a primary job that you can do and be successful at and include these office skills on your resume.  It also needs to be a job that you can convince skilled interviewers that you can do. If you are qualified to do multiple jobs, you can eventually create a resume for those different jobs but pick a primary job first.

What is an Office Skills Resume?

Before you begin exploring the resources below, you need to understand the purpose of a resume. A Resume is a document containing a summary or listing of relevant job experience, accomplishments, office skills and education that relate to your career objectives.   The purpose of a resume is to obtain a job interview and ultimately obtain a job.  If you do not have any job skills or experience, you can include volunteer or community work on your resume.  If you have obtained certificates in Office Skills, you may include this training as part of your Education.

Keep in mind as you prepare your office skills resume that you must include both hard skills and soft skills that you excel in.  It’s a fact that the office professional can no longer depend on the technical office skills alone for success on the job. They must have the ability to communicate and get along with people, so an understanding of the importance of soft skills and interpersonal skills is important and must be reflected in your resume.

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are personal qualities such as being responsible, dependable, a self-starter, having a positive self-esteem, being sociable, exhibiting self-management, displaying integrity/honesty, projecting a pleasant personality, showing your human side and projecting a professional image. Also, your ability to get along with your co-workers and being a team player is essential to your success as a valued employee.  Below are some of the soft skills you may possess that should be included on your office skills resume.  If you find you are lacking in some of these important soft skills, take the course on Soft Skills Training for the Administrative Professional offered on officeskills.org.

• Communication Skills –  Having great communication skills is one of the most important soft skills you can possess so let it be known on your office skills resume that you are an excellent communicator.  As an administrative professional, you will be communicating externally with your company’s clients and internally with many of the employees of the organization.  Regardless of the industry you work in or the position you hold, it’s essential to communicate effectively with those around you via multiple channels including verbally as well as via phone, email, chat, and social media.
• Teamwork and Being a Team Player – Teamwork is an extremely important soft skill which ranks up there with communication. In order to be an effective team player, you will need to be able to communicate well with your manager and other team members.  There may have been times in your career as an administrative professional that you worked in collaboration with other administrative staff or employees who were assigned a task or goal for which the team must work together to arrive at a solution or recommendation.  Including this on your resume will show that you are a team player who is dedicated to achieving a specific task or goal.
• Being Ethical – Having a positive attitude and a strong work ethic both go hand in hand. Your positive attitude will increase your productivity which in turn will help you build strong relationships with your fellow team members and manager. Let it be known on your resume that you have a solid work ethic and are honest and dependable.
• Being a good listener – Listening is one of the most important soft skills you can have as an office professional, no matter which position you hold. Businesses love to hire people who have good listening skills as employees who are poor listeners can cost an organization hundreds and thousands of dollars a year from mistakes made from poor listening habits.  How well you listen will have a major impact on your job effectiveness and ability to perform your job. If you develop good listening skills, you will be able to solve problems more effectively.
• Problem solving Skills – Problem solving is a critical soft skill for success as an office professional. We may not realize it but many of the tasks we perform each day involves some problem solving ability. It can be as simple as cancelling and rescheduling appointments to completely re-designing the department filing system. In today’s fast paced environment, the office professional is expected to demonstrate how to solve problems as they arise each day. Problem solving has become a necessary job skill that all office professionals should strive to achieve and if you are good at it, include it on your resume.
• Time Management Skills – Time management is another one of the most important soft skills you can develop as the ability to manage your time and work assignments will not only increase your productivity, but also your satisfaction on the job. Employers today look for people who are able to plan their time effectively. Time management and critical thinking skills go hand in hand as it’s hard to manage your time unless you can critically think out your day.  Putting time management as a skill on your resume demonstrates to a potential employer that you can manage your time effectively.
• Adaptable and Flexible – Adaptability for the office professional means that you are open and willing to take on new responsibility at the office, learn new things as required and make the necessary adjustments to these changes in the workplace. While this soft skill is a very difficult quality for many people to meet, the dynamics of the work place today is constantly changing, making it very important to understand what it means to be adaptable and flexible.  The ability to compromise and adapt to change will be key to your success as an administrative professional in the 21st Century.

What are Hard Skills?

Hard skills for the administrative assistant are the critical technical office skills that you bring to the workplace like working on Excel spreadsheets or Word documents. Hard skills can learned and can be acquired through training, work or a combination of both.  Hard skills are standard across industries and are considered transferable which means, once learned, you can transfer them from job to job which is why it’s so important to include them on your resume.   For example, the hard skills for an administrative assistant position would be very similar at several different organizations and industries.  Hard skills are also considered measurable, which means an employer can test you on these skills.  For example, when applying for a position of an Administrative Assistant, a typing test will usually be part of the application process.  The following is a list of hard skills that should be included on your resume if you possess them.

• Demonstrate Proficiency in Microsoft Office including Word, Excel and Outlook – If you are proficient at creating professional looking business documents such as letters, memos, reports, flyers using Tables, presentations  and Excel spreadsheets, list this experience on your resume.
• Other Desktop Office Software such as LibreOffice, Open Office, Google Docs or any of the other free open source software programs available on the marketplace.
• Web Applications – If you commonly use Web Apps such as Cloud Storage Services for backing up data such as DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box or Google Apps such as Gmail and Google Docs, include them on your resume.
• Managing office supplies and Inventory Control
• Managing calendars
• Booking travel
• Scheduling facilities and equipment
• Routine clerical and organizational tasks
• Organizing files
• Buying supplies, and managing stockrooms
• Knowledge of videoconferencing, fax, and other office equipment
• Conducting research

A good way to start putting your office skills resume together is to fill out this office-skills-resume-questionnaire provided to you by officeskills.org.  Once you gather all this information together on your resume questionnaire, it will be much easier to put together your actual resume.  If you would like to create your resume from scratch, follow the instructions on how to Create a Resume in Word from a table.  Otherwise, use one of the resume templates provided for you by Microsoft Word or other word processing programs.

How to Improve your Office Skills?

To improve your office skills  today, take the Administrative Office Professional online course or the Soft Skills Training for Administrative Professionals on officeskills.org.

This course is taught in the Office Skills Collaborative Online Classroom. The Office Skills Collaborative Online Classroom is a fun and interactive way to learn Office Skills. Get the benefit of learning online while being in a classroom environment with an instructor, other students, discussion forums, chat rooms, lectures, presentations and video demonstrations.

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