Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between executive secretaries and receptionist secretaries can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 2-4 years to become an executive secretary, becoming a receptionist secretary takes usually requires 1-2 years. Additionally, an executive secretary has an average salary of $46,594, which is higher than the $29,343 average annual salary of a receptionist secretary.
The top three skills for an executive secretary include office procedures, payroll and word processing. The most important skills for a receptionist secretary are patients, data entry, and phone calls.
| Executive Secretary | Receptionist Secretary | |
| Yearly salary | $46,594 | $29,343 |
| Hourly rate | $22.40 | $14.11 |
| Growth rate | -8% | - |
| Number of jobs | 103,802 | 61,892 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 44% | High School Diploma, 37% |
| Average age | 49 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 2 |
The primary role of executive secretaries is to provide clerical support to an executive or a high-level administrator. They are the ones who conduct the different administrative support tasks for executives which include managing the calendar of executives, answering phone calls, conducting research and sorting important files, preparing and proofreading monthly reports and industry documents that are relevant to the role of executives, and performing some bookkeeping activities such as invoice creation and office inventory tracking.
A receptionist secretary is responsible for providing the best customer service, as well as attending to the needs of existing and potential clients. Duties of a receptionist secretary include managing customer's inquiries and forwarding important calls to the appropriate department, performing administrative and clerical tasks, escalating high-level of client's concerns to the management, keeping the reception area clean, monitoring office supplies and request stocks as needed, and maintaining an organized record of meetings and events. A receptionist secretary must have strong communication and multi-tasking skills to handle workloads of daily operations.
Executive secretaries and receptionist secretaries have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Executive Secretary | Receptionist Secretary | |
| Average salary | $46,594 | $29,343 |
| Salary range | Between $31,000 And $69,000 | Between $24,000 And $35,000 |
| Highest paying City | New York, NY | Lake Oswego, OR |
| Highest paying state | New York | Washington |
| Best paying company | InfosysPublicService | Illinois Institute of Technology |
| Best paying industry | Government | Government |
There are a few differences between an executive secretary and a receptionist secretary in terms of educational background:
| Executive Secretary | Receptionist Secretary | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 44% | High School Diploma, 37% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Western Carolina University | - |
Here are the differences between executive secretaries' and receptionist secretaries' demographics:
| Executive Secretary | Receptionist Secretary | |
| Average age | 49 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 7.7% Female, 92.3% | Male, 5.6% Female, 94.4% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 7.6% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 11.2% Asian, 5.0% White, 71.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% | Black or African American, 11.4% Unknown, 4.3% Hispanic or Latino, 21.1% Asian, 6.3% White, 56.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.8% |
| LGBT Percentage | 10% | 6% |