It is the department secretary's responsibility to handle the administrative tasks for the activities of an organization to run smoothly. A secretary answers phone calls, takes messages, and arranges appointments. You are responsible for the preparation and collation of reports, management of databases, and maintenance of diaries. During meetings, the secretary presents agendas and takes down minutes. Your duty includes making orders for new office supplies and to welcome business clients. Plus, you also have to document financial information and maintain the filing system. In addition, a secretary helps executives with project tasks, supervise new employees and implement administrative procedures.
A high school diploma is the least academic requirement for this role. Some companies prefer applicants with proven work experience in a similar role. As a secretary, you must be familiar with the office environment and tools such as Microsoft Office. You must also be able to multitask, meet up with deadlines, and possess organizational skills. The average salary of a department secretary yearly is $33,547.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a department secretary. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.73 an hour? That's $34,803 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -7% and produce -276,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many department secretaries 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.
If you're interested in becoming a department secretary, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 38.7% of department secretaries have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 4.6% of department secretaries have master's degrees. Even though some department secretaries 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 a department secretary. When we researched the most common majors for a department secretary, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on department secretary resumes include high school diploma degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a department secretary. In fact, many department secretary jobs require experience in a role such as administrative assistant. Meanwhile, many department secretaries also have previous career experience in roles such as secretary or customer service representative.