Résumé bullet points for an administrative assistant
Running the calendars, travel, expenses, documents and inbound requests that keep other people working. The difficulty is that the job is measured in things that did not go wrong, which is the hardest kind of work to evidence.
What this job lets you count
Every résumé guide says to quantify your bullets and then leaves you to work out what a administrative assistant is supposed to count. Here is the list, and where each figure is already being recorded, so you can go and get it.
| Count this | Where the figure already is |
|---|---|
| People supported and their seniority | Your own record. Supporting three directors is a different job from supporting one manager. |
| Calendar and meeting volume | A month in the calendar, counted once. It is usually a surprising number. |
| Travel booked and budget handled | Booking tool and expense system totals. |
| Expense reports and invoices processed | Finance system counts per period. |
| Inbox or request volume | Shared inbox, ticket queue or reception log. |
| Events run and their headcount | Attendee lists and the budget you were given. |
4 bullets, before and after
Before
Responsible for managing calendars and scheduling meetings.
After
Ran the diaries for 3 directors across 5 time zones, roughly 60 meetings a week, with conflicts resolved before they reached them.
Seniority, time zones and volume are three facts that separate this from an entry-level version of the same sentence.
Before
Booked travel arrangements for staff.
After
Booked about 120 trips a year against a $180k travel budget, and moved us to a single agency to cut the average booking-to-ticket time from 2 days to same day.
A process change with a before and after turns booking from a task into an improvement you made.
Before
Processed expense reports and invoices.
After
Processed around 90 expense claims a month and cleared a 6-week invoice backlog in three weeks by chasing approvals directly rather than by email.
The backlog you inherited and the method you used are the parts a hiring manager remembers.
Before
Organised company events and meetings.
After
Ran the quarterly all-hands for 140 staff and the annual offsite for 60, both within a $25k budget, for three years.
Headcount and budget make event work legible as a commercial responsibility rather than as logistics.
The mistake this résumé usually makes
Writing the job as a list of nouns — calendars, travel, expenses — because the work is invisible when done well. The counts are all sitting in systems you use daily, and a single month of calendar volume counted once will usually produce a more impressive number than anything you would have thought to claim.
Common questions
- What should I put on a résumé for a administrative assistant job?
- Running the calendars, travel, expenses, documents and inbound requests that keep other people working. The difficulty is that the job is measured in things that did not go wrong, which is the hardest kind of work to evidence. Start from what the role can count: people supported and their seniority, calendar and meeting volume, travel booked and budget handled.
- How do I quantify a administrative assistant résumé?
- People supported and their seniority: Your own record. Supporting three directors is a different job from supporting one manager. Calendar and meeting volume: A month in the calendar, counted once. It is usually a surprising number. Travel booked and budget handled: Booking tool and expense system totals. Expense reports and invoices processed: Finance system counts per period. Inbox or request volume: Shared inbox, ticket queue or reception log. Events run and their headcount: Attendee lists and the budget you were given.
- What is the most common mistake on a administrative assistant résumé?
- Writing the job as a list of nouns — calendars, travel, expenses — because the work is invisible when done well. The counts are all sitting in systems you use daily, and a single month of calendar volume counted once will usually produce a more impressive number than anything you would have thought to claim.
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Words to fix while you are rewriting
After the résumé
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