How To Become An Executive Staff Assistant: What It Is and Career Path

What is an executive staff assistant and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

An executive staff assistant performs various administrative and support tasks for their company's executives. Their main duties include liaising between executives and clients, handling correspondence (calls, emails, text messages, faxes, etc.), arranging appointments and meetings, and managing requests from the executive/s that they serve.

Other responsibilities of an executive assistant are taking down notes during meetings, preparing presentations, performing data entry tasks, making travel arrangements, and briefing their boss about events, clients, and reports. They usually work in close proximity with their executive, typically right outside their private office or in a separate desk inside the office.

Because they assist someone in a high position in the company, most employers require executive staff assistants to have a college education. Ideal majors for this job include business, accounting, and management. Furthermore, an aspiring executive staff assistant must have prior experience in a similar role to ensure that they have the skills needed to perform their duties correctly and quickly. Executive staff assistants earn around $58,000 a year plus benefits. Some assistants, especially those who work with very high-profile employers, can earn as much as $119,000 annually.

ScoreExecutive Staff AssistantUS Average

Salary

4.6

Avg. Salary $58,792

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

3.6

Growth rate -8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.40%

Asian 5.00%

Black or African American 7.62%

Hispanic or Latino 11.22%

Unknown 4.80%

White 70.97%

Gender

female 70.20%

male 29.80%

Age - 51

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 51

Stress level

3.6

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

5.7

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.9

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an executive staff assistant

Explore executive staff assistant education requirements

Most common executive staff assistant degrees

Bachelor's

62.2 %

Associate

17.1 %

Master's

12.7 %

Start to develop specific executive staff assistant skills

Skills	Percentages
PowerPoint	14.48%
Provides Administrative Support	9.25%
Travel Arrangements	7.24%
Meeting Minutes	6.27%
Logistics	5.65%

Complete relevant executive staff assistant training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New executive staff assistants learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an executive staff assistant based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real executive staff assistant resumes.

Research executive staff assistant duties and responsibilities

Manage VIP pipelines, acknowledge visitors and support with special projects include research and events and dealing with clients.
Compile, manage and organize travel and expense reports processing and submitting reports using PeopleSoft for reimbursement.
Design and maintain a SharePoint site for the headquarters readiness office.
Design and create SharePoint site for CIO to improve document tracking and to provide a document repository for authoritative items.

Get executive staff assistant experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become an executive staff assistant. The most common roles before becoming an executive staff assistant include administrative assistant, executive assistant team lead and office manager.

Prepare your executive staff assistant resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your executive staff assistant resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an executive staff assistant resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable executive staff assistant resume templates

Build a professional executive staff assistant resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your executive staff assistant resume.