These Are The 10 Most Exciting Jobs For Former Secretaries

It’s tough to be a secretary nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a secretary isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become secretaries in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many secretaries no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former secretaries to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Here’s a quick look at the top ten most common jobs for former secretaries:

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a secretary would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — as a list, they’re kind of boring as hell. They’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former secretaries to do.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Here are some of the most interesting jobs of former secretaries:

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

How We Determined the Most Common Jobs of Former Secretaries

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed secretary under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a secretary, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

That’s all for how we did it — below you’ll find the full ranked list of the most common jobs of former secretaries.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former Secretaries

Job Title	Rank	%
Administrative Assistant	1	6.62%
Customer Service Representative	2	2.7%
Sales Associate	3	2.4%
Office Manager	4	2.1%
Cashier	5	1.98%
Internship	6	1.32%
Volunteer	7	0.96%
Teacher	8	0.94%
Receptionist	9	0.92%
Office Assistant	10	0.88%
Server	11	0.8%
Substitute Teacher	12	0.74%
Legal Assistant	13	0.73%
Manager	14	0.69%
Assistant Manager	15	0.65%
Executive Assistant	16	0.63%
Medical Assistant	17	0.53%
Legal Secretary	18	0.51%
Certified Nursing Assistant	19	0.5%
Research Assistant	20	0.44%
Customer Service Trainer	21	0.43%
Sales Representative	22	0.43%
Billing Specialist	23	0.43%
Pharmacist Technician	24	0.42%
Assistant	25	0.38%
Human Resources Coordinator	26	0.35%
Waitress	27	0.34%
Clerk	28	0.33%
Registered Nurse	29	0.33%
Teller	30	0.33%
Owner	31	0.3%
Home Health Aid	32	0.3%
President	33	0.3%
Office Administrator	34	0.3%
Teacher Assistant	35	0.29%
Administrator Secretary	36	0.28%
Receptionist Secretary	37	0.27%
Accounts Payable Clerk	38	0.27%
Associate	39	0.27%
Human Resources Assistant	40	0.27%
Coordinator	41	0.26%
Security Officer	42	0.26%
Vice President	43	0.26%
Supervisor	44	0.25%
Store Manager	45	0.25%
Specialist	46	0.25%
Bookkeeper	47	0.25%
Paralegal	48	0.24%
Unit Secretary	49	0.23%
Case Manager	50	0.23%
Front Desk Receptionist	51	0.23%
Tutor	52	0.23%
Medical Receptionist	53	0.23%
Data Entry Clerk	54	0.22%
Program Assistant	55	0.22%
Teaching Assistant	56	0.21%
Executive Secretary	57	0.21%
Administrator	58	0.2%
Data Entry Associate	59	0.2%
Licensed Practical Nurse	60	0.2%
Technician	61	0.2%
Hostess	62	0.2%
Administrative Coordinator	63	0.19%
Preschool Teacher	64	0.19%
Medical Transcriptionist	65	0.19%
Team Leader	66	0.19%
Nanny	67	0.19%
Student Assistant	68	0.19%
Customer Service Associate	69	0.19%
Administrative Specialist	70	0.18%
Consultant	71	0.18%
Marketing Internship	72	0.17%
Crew Member	73	0.17%
Accountant	74	0.17%
Human Resources Manager	75	0.17%
Accounting Clerk	76	0.16%
Program Coordinator	77	0.16%
Senior Administrative Assistant	78	0.16%
Project Manager	79	0.16%
Office Clerk	80	0.16%
Medical Records Clerk	81	0.15%
Operations Manager	82	0.15%
Human Resource Specialist	83	0.15%
Personal Assistant	84	0.14%
Program Analyst	85	0.14%
Dental Assistant	86	0.13%
Counselor	87	0.13%
General Manager	88	0.13%
Executive Administrative Assistant	89	0.13%
Graduate Assistant	90	0.13%
Ship Worker	91	0.13%
Instructor	92	0.13%
Account Manager	93	0.13%
Property Manager	94	0.13%
Buyer	95	0.13%
Patient Service Representative	96	0.12%
Assistant Secretary	97	0.12%
Accounting Assistant	98	0.12%
Owner/Operator	99	0.12%
Graphic Designer	100	0.12%

Never miss an opportunity that’s right for you.

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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