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The differences between managers's assistant/administrative assistant and executive secretaries can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become a manager's assistant/administrative assistant, becoming an executive secretary takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, an executive secretary has an average salary of $46,594, which is higher than the $44,190 average annual salary of a manager's assistant/administrative assistant.
The top three skills for a manager's assistant/administrative assistant include inventory control, customer service and financial reports. The most important skills for an executive secretary are office procedures, payroll, and word processing.
| Manager's Assistant/Administrative Assistant | Executive Secretary | |
| Yearly salary | $44,190 | $46,594 |
| Hourly rate | $21.25 | $22.40 |
| Growth rate | -8% | -8% |
| Number of jobs | 40,349 | 103,802 |
| Job satisfaction | 4 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 49% | Bachelor's Degree, 44% |
| Average age | 50 | 49 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 4 |
A manager's assistant, or administrative assistant, is responsible for providing support to the management by performing administrative and clerical tasks as needed. Some of the administrative assistant's duties include receiving and responding to customer's inquiries and concerns through e-mail, phone calls, and personal visits, scheduling meetings or important events, generating operations reports, keeping records of the company's expenses, and monitoring office supplies. An administrative assistant must have exceptional work ethics and time-management skills, as well as the ability to multi-task to perform multiple tasks under minimal supervision.
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.
Managers's assistant/administrative assistant and executive secretaries have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Manager's Assistant/Administrative Assistant | Executive Secretary | |
| Average salary | $44,190 | $46,594 |
| Salary range | Between $27,000 And $71,000 | Between $31,000 And $69,000 |
| Highest paying City | Washington, DC | New York, NY |
| Highest paying state | New York | New York |
| Best paying company | Bain & Company | InfosysPublicService |
| Best paying industry | Manufacturing | Government |
There are a few differences between a manager's assistant/administrative assistant and an executive secretary in terms of educational background:
| Manager's Assistant/Administrative Assistant | Executive Secretary | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 49% | Bachelor's Degree, 44% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Western Carolina University | Western Carolina University |
Here are the differences between managers's assistant/administrative assistant' and executive secretaries' demographics:
| Manager's Assistant/Administrative Assistant | Executive Secretary | |
| Average age | 50 | 49 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 33.9% Female, 66.1% | Male, 7.7% Female, 92.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 9.2% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 16.1% Asian, 3.8% White, 66.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7% | 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% |
| LGBT Percentage | 6% | 10% |