Best Administrative Skills For Your Resume

Strong administrative skills enable you to plan events and projects, manage time, and keep things going smoothly. It also implies that you are capable of communicating and engaging with a company’s consumers, clients, and stakeholders.

Though administrative skills are required for occupations such as Administrative Assistants, Receptionists, and Office Managers, they are also useful in almost every position across a variety of industries. Employers place a high importance on administrative talents, so make sure you showcase these in your Resume.

Administrative skills defined

Administrative abilities are a set of characteristics that, when combined, enable you to help manage a corporation, department, or office. They comprise both hard skills, such as understanding how to operate a particular software tool, and soft skills, such as communication and problem solving. Essential administrative activities may involve talking with staff, filing, running reports, managing calendars, and responding to client inquiries.

Why administrative skills are important to employers

People with great administrative abilities are typically trustworthy self-starters who can effectively plan and manage their time. Employers admire their wide skill set because it helps businesses maintain productivity and keep things operating smoothly; they are a cornerstone of a company’s success. Any successful corporation will not only have administrative staff with good administrative abilities on their resumes, but also other employees throughout the organization who use these skills in their various roles.

Administrative abilities are highly transportable across industries and job kinds. Administrative abilities required for a marketing position, for example, are applicable and transferable to the energy business.

What are some of the most in-demand administrative skills for resumes?

There are various administrative talents on resumes that might help you stand out to hiring managers. Here are 11 of the most critical administrative abilities to include on your resume, along with an explanation of why.

1. Communication

Communication, both verbal and written, is a daily essential for almost any employment. Administrative professionals frequently communicate in a variety of ways with a wide range of people, both inside and external to the company, from employees and executives to customers and contractors.

2. Microsoft 365

We are all familiar with some Microsoft 365 applications, such as Microsoft Word and Outlook. Those with strong technical administrative abilities on their résumé, on the other hand, are more likely to be familiar with all of the suite’s products, including Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive.

3. Organization

With so many plates spinning at once, employees must enhance their organizational skills. In fact, it is one of the most critical administrative talents for keeping things running smoothly inside a team, department, or company. When you’re organized, you’re more likely to have good time management and planning skills, both of which are highly valued administrative skills.

4. Problem solving

We solve difficulties every day, including at work. A good problem solver finds the issue, suggests solutions, selects the best one, and implements it. Strong problem solvers promote business continuity, creativity, and inspiration, making them a very important administrative talent on resumes.

5. Scheduling

Though all employees must maintain their schedules, administrative roles, in particular, frequently face the onerous burden of managing multiple calendars at once. In addition to calendar management, administrators frequently coordinate and schedule meetings, travel arrangements, and activities for the teams or individuals they serve, making scheduling a necessary technical competence.

6. Flexibility

As the saying goes, change is the only constant that necessitates flexibility. Employees must be adaptable in order to properly respond to shifting priorities, needs, and requests. Without flexibility, work can become more stressful, and productivity suffers.

7. Working well under stress

Tight deadlines, rapid turnaround times, several requests, multiple projects at once, and day-to-day responsibilities can feel overwhelming for any employee. Being able to perform well under stress is essential for staying on top of things and not becoming overwhelmed, which can slow down progress. When you operate well under pressure, you are also likely to be strong at multitasking, which is another important administrative talent.

8. Customer service

Strong interpersonal and customer service skills are required for administrative professions that include dealing with customers and clients. This is especially true for service and support roles.

9. Teamwork

Though administrative professionals are often present to ensure that things run smoothly, they do it as part of a team. Individual contributors, while responsible for their own responsibilities and activities, also contribute to the department and work as part of a team to achieve department and organizational goals and objectives.

10. Detail orientation

When maintaining calendars, communicating corporate information, planning events, or creating presentations, you must pay close attention to detail to ensure accuracy and efficiency. Mistakes in these areas can be costly, if not financially, then in terms of increased stress and missed time. Employers want to know they can trust you to properly cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s when they engage you to do a job, thus attention to detail is a valuable administrative ability.

11. Event coordination

Administrative workers, in particular, are frequently responsible for organizing events of various proportions. Administrative tasks include coordinating company events, Christmas parties, and staff meetings, among other things. What’s nice about displaying event coordination talents is that you’re also demonstrating other administrative skills such as organization, communication, multitasking, cooperation, and problem resolution.

Additional administrative skills for resumes

The list above is only a starting point for creating your own list of administrative talents to put on your resume. To provide even more inspiration, consider the following extra hard and soft abilities commonly featured on administrative resumes.

Administrative hard skills for resumes

• Office equipment use
• Quickbooks
• Data entry
• Reporting
• Research
• Database management
• Videoconferencing
• Messaging
• Expense reporting
• Accounting
• Google Docs
• File management

Administrative soft skills for resumes

• Decision-making
• Interpersonal skills
• Prioritization
• Active listening
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• Open-mindedness
• Patience

How to highlight administrative skills on your resume

• Create a list of your administrative abilities and accomplishments. Using this piece as inspiration, sit down and make a careful list of all your administrative talents. From there, write a list of all of your administrative activities and responsibilities, as well as any job achievements connected to administrative talents you’ve used or positions you’ve held.
• Refer to the job description. Examine the job description you’re interested in and emphasize any administrative abilities and experience required. Then compare it to the list you prepared based on your employment history. Make sure your CV includes administrative abilities and expertise relevant to the job description. This is an excellent approach to add keywords into your resume so that it passes through an employer’s application tracking system, or ATS, and captures the attention of hiring managers.
• Showcase both soft and hard (technical) skills on your resume. To get the most out of your resume, highlight both hard and soft administrative talents. Hard skills are measurable and learnt, but soft skills are intangible and impossible to quantify, yet essential for work success. In the following section, we will go over where and how to include both hard and soft talents.
• Highlight soft talents with on-the-job accomplishments and achievements. Unlike technical skills, you do not want to list only soft skills on your resume. Instead, you want to demonstrate your soft talents through the achievements you choose to highlight. As an example, consider the following:

Oversaw and planned a 5-hour corporate event for 1,000 workers, presenting the management team and recognizing staff successes and milestones in 2024.

Organization, time management, attention to detail, critical thinking, and originality are just a few of the administrative soft skills highlighted in this achievement.

Where to highlight administrative skills on your resume

Now that you know how to come up with administrative skills to include on a resume, where can you incorporate them? Any of the following are excellent options:

• Resume Summary
• Skills or Core Competencies section
• Experience section
• Certifications section
• Additional sections

Resume Summary

Your resume summary, which appears just below your contact information, is where you can make a strong impression and persuade resume readers to continue reading. Here are a few examples of how to incorporate administrative talents into your resume summary:

Administrative professional example

Administrator with over 5 years of experience working with C-suite executives to navigate organizational challenges and provide solutions to maintain business continuity and operations. Managed up to 15 calendars at one time using effective scheduling, time management, and organizational skills.

What are some of the administrative skills this summary speaks to? How about:

• Communication
• Organization
• Problem solving
• Time management
• Stress management
• Scheduling
• Multitasking

Non-administrative individual contributor example

Focused engineering expert with 10 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. Uses strong problem-solving skills to resolve concerns in high-stakes situations, with the ability to shift priorities and sustain productivity. Organized and supervised a $2 million pipeline building project to improve pipeline requirements and match current industry standards.

Some of the administrative skills that this summary highlights include:

• Critical thinking
• Stress management
• Prioritizing
• Flexibility
• Problem solving
• Focus
• Attention to detail
• Communication

Skills or Core Competencies section

It can be advantageous to include a Core Competencies section just below your resume summary to highlight both technical and relevant soft abilities. For example:

Core Competencies

Customer Service | Microsoft 365 | Quickbooks | Research | Scheduling | Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) | Oracle Applicant Tracking System | Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) | Event Coordination

Alternatively, the hard skills listed could all also go under a Technical Skills section near the end of your resume:

Technical Skills

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) | Microsoft 365 | Quickbooks | Research | ATS Proficiency | Event Coordination | Scheduling

Avoid being repetitive and listing the same skills in both a Core Competencies and Skills section – only choose one of the two if you don’t have different skills to include in each list.

Work Experience section

The Work Experience section is another opportunity to showcase your exceptional administrative abilities. Here’s an example that demonstrates focus, stress management, communication, filing, organization, switchboard management, time management, and more in only three bullet points!

Receptionist

ABC Company, Houston, TX

July 2021 – Present

Managed switchboard for three office buildings housing over 750 employees

Answered client questions regarding products and services, handling a high call volume of 40 to 50 calls per day

Spearheaded development of a new filing system for improved organization of client cases related to issues and concerns

Certifications section

If you have any administrative-related credentials, you can list them in the credentials section of your CV. Relevant credentials not only demonstrate administrative abilities and expertise, but also your commitment to professional development.

Examples of in-demand administrative certifications are:

Microsoft 365

Certified Administrative Professional (CAP)

Administrative Assistant Certification (CAA)

Microsoft Office Specialist Certification (MOS)

Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)

Professional Administrative Certification of Excellence (PACE)

Additional sections

Finally, some might choose to highlight administrative skills on their resume by including additional sections, such as:

Volunteer Work

Hobbies & Interests

Extracurricular Activities

Special Projects

Including additional sections on a resume can benefit those who have gaps in administrative work experience, skills, or education.

Administrative skills = valuable assets for any resume

Administrative abilities on resumes give value and stand out to hiring managers, whether you’re seeking for an administrative role or another. Now you have some of the most in-demand administrative abilities to include on your resume, as well as tips on how and where to include them. With these tips, you’ll be landing interviews in no time!