As more and more businesses become remote, administrative specialists will increase in demand and take on a role called virtual assistants. Surprisingly, there is an art to organizing paperwork, arranging schedules, managing correspondence, and attending to customer inquiries.
Besides performing the primary clerical tasks, administrative specialists also help in preparing minutes, developing presentation summaries, conducting research and analysis as well as maintaining electronic databases.
Employers require a minimum high school diploma but prefer administrative specialists that have a bachelor's degree. The salary is, on average, $21 per hour and is a market that is not crowded and offers a low barrier to entry. This role is fitting for someone who loves organizing things and scheduling activities. If you are entrepreneurial enough, you can even set up your own virtual assistant platform.
Administrative Specialist Overview
Administrative Specialist Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an administrative specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $19.07 an hour? That's $39,657 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -7% and produce -276,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does an Administrative Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many administrative specialists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed interpersonal skills, organizational skills and writing skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be an administrative specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 10.6% of administrative specialists included customer service, while 7.8% of resumes included office procedures, and 7.6% of resumes included communication. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the administrative specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most administrative specialists actually find jobs in the technology and education industries.
How To Become an Administrative Specialist
If you're interested in becoming an administrative specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 38.6% of administrative specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 10.4% of administrative specialists have master's degrees. Even though some administrative specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an administrative specialist. When we researched the most common majors for an administrative specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on administrative specialist resumes include high school diploma degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an administrative specialist. In fact, many administrative specialist jobs require experience in a role such as administrative assistant. Meanwhile, many administrative specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as customer service representative or office manager.
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Administrative Specialist Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of executive assistant you might progress to a role such as office manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title senior account manager.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for an Administrative Specialist
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Randstad Administrative Specialist Administrative Specialist | Randstad Randstad | 01/30/2021 01/30/2021 | $30,26201/30/2021 $30,262 |
Jobspot Administrative Specialist Administrative Specialist | Jobspot Jobspot | 01/30/2021 01/30/2021 | $30,00001/30/2021 $30,000 |
Nc Department of Transportation Administrative Specialist I Administrative Specialist I | Nc Department of Transportation Nc Department of Transportation | 01/30/2021 01/30/2021 | $31,20001/30/2021 $31,200 |
University of South Carolina Administrative Specialist II Administrative Specialist II | University of South Carolina University of South Carolina | 01/30/2021 01/30/2021 | $24,94301/30/2021 $24,943 |
City of Boise Administrative Specialist PW ENG Administrative Specialist PW ENG | City of Boise City of Boise | 01/29/2021 01/29/2021 | $28,23701/29/2021 $28,237 |
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Administrative Specialist Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming an Administrative Specialist. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write an Administrative Specialist Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Administrative Specialist resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Administrative Specialists
1. Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC • Public
2. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
3. Ball State University
Muncie, IN • Public
4. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
5. Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH • Public
6. Cedar Crest College
Allentown, PA • Private
7. Morgan State University
Baltimore, MD • Public
8. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
9. Siena Heights University
Adrian, MI • Private
10. University of Akron
Akron, OH • Public
Top Skills For an Administrative Specialist
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 10.6% of administrative specialists listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as interpersonal skills and organizational skills are important as well.
- Customer Service, 10.6%
- Office Procedures, 7.8%
- Communication, 7.6%
- Data Entry, 4.4%
- Powerpoint, 4.2%
- Other Skills, 65.4% See All Administrative Specialist Skills
Best States For an Administrative Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an administrative specialist. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York. Administrative specialists make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $67,154. Whereas in Rhode Island and New Jersey, they would average $65,424 and $60,239, respectively. While administrative specialists would only make an average of $57,918 in New York, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Massachusetts
$67,154
Avg. Salary
2. District of Columbia
$59,731
Avg. Salary
3. Alaska
$54,197
Avg. Salary
How Do Administrative Specialist Rate Their Jobs?
Top Administrative Specialist Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ administrative specialists and discovered their number of administrative specialist opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that United States Army was the best, especially with an average salary of $57,515. United States Marine follows up with an average salary of $53,388, and then comes Kaiser Permanente with an average of $38,026. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as an administrative specialist. The employers include Realogy, Washington Federal, and Devereux Foundation