Office assistant cover letter

Office Assistant Cover Letter (With Examples)

From managing files to scheduling meetings, office assistants are an important part of what keeps a workplace functional. Plus, this position often comes with relatively high pay and low education requirements, which can be beneficial for many people.

So you want to apply, but how can you assure that you land the job?

Well, to increase your chances of being hired, you should include a professional, passionate cover letter that highlights your skills and qualifications.

As a prospective office assistant, your cover letter can allow you to outline your most impressive achievements and demonstrate why you have the skills to handle a fast-paced and often high-pressure environment. Overall, a professional cover letter can give your application that extra push it needs to shine.

In this article, we’ll discuss what makes an office assistant’s cover letter successful, as well as provide professional tips and examples.

Crucial Parts of an Office Assistant Cover Letter

To be considered for the position of office assistant, you’ll want to convey your organizational skills, time management, and ability to communicate and follow directions.

While education requirements for the position are typically low, only requiring a high school diploma or associate's degree, it's still important to have experience filing important paperwork or using various online programs. After all, scheduling a meeting correctly or knowing where the profit margin paperwork is logged away is a crucial part of the job.

Luckily, a well-written cover letter allows you to outline your qualifications by briefly explaining why you’re the right person for the position.

Overall, you should do your best to include as many relevant details as possible, while also keeping your letter relatively brief. To keep your letter focused and highlight your most important qualifications, here are some traits to keep in mind:

• Time management. To properly handle phone calls, printing and filing, office assistants need to manage their time efficiently.

  For instance, if a stack of documents is due to be printed by 1 PM, but there’s an important phone call coming in at 1:30 PM, an experienced office assistant might print the documents early to ensure that they’re waiting at the phone before 1:30 PM.

• Organization. Because most offices have an assistant to maintain a more organized and functional workplace, no one wants a disorganized office assistant. On the contrary, having the proper organization skills allows office assistants to perform their tasks more quickly and accurately.

  Therefore, if you have experience organizing documents, cleaning, or any other important organizational skills, you’ll want to include that in your cover letter.

• Communication and following directions. Office assistants regularly communicate with other office staff and take directions from senior staff members. For that reason, it’s vital that you’re able to communicate with your co-workers and that you have no issue following directions from your boss.

• Attention to detail. Having attention to detail can help office assistants avoid making mistakes in the workplace, which is a crucial part of filing paperwork correctly or scheduling appointments at the right time.

• Scheduling. Typically, office assistants spend a large part of their day developing schedules and listening to what their boss’s timeframe is. With that in mind, it's important for you to have experience creating organized and effective schedules.

Structurally speaking, your letter also requires a few vital components. After all, wowing a potential employer isn’t very useful if they don’t know how to contact you. In general, your letter should include:

• Your contact information

• The company’s contact information

• An introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion (typically 3 small paragraphs)

• Letter formatting (e.g. Beginning with Dear “employer’s name”, and concluded with Sincerely, “your name”)

Office Assistant Cover Letter Opening

First and foremost, any professional cover letter should include your contact information at the top of the page, and properly address the potential employer. Not only is this formatting standard for any type of cover letter, but more importantly, it also ensures that your employer will have your information. Here is an example of how to properly address your letter:

Now that you know how to properly address your letter, it’s important to open strong with an eye-catching introduction, especially considering that the average employer spends less than 10 seconds reading your application. Leaving a memorable impression right from the start can dramatically increase your chances of moving forward with the hiring process.

In the case of an office assistant application, outlining your most valuable experience working with others, keeping an organized workspace, and scheduling can be a worthwhile way to start your cover letter.

For instance, if you can think of a time you completed your work at an impressive pace or came up with an innovative organizational solution, you should kick off with one of those examples.

Here’s an example of an eye-catching introduction:

Stating a meaningful accomplishment in your opening paragraph shows the employer that you have the hard skills to succeed in your field.

However, remember that even if you have a minimal amount of experience, and are applying at entry-level, you should still try to start with a noteworthy accomplishment related to your ability to file documents, keep your workplace organized, or work as a team.

Office Assistant Cover Letter Body

Now that you’ve successfully hooked your employer in, it’s important to outline why you’re that highly qualified candidate they’re looking for. Typically, one of the best ways to show your passion for the field is by outlining your achievements and experience.

Additionally, you should try to do some research on the office in question, so you can use the information you find to further express your interest in the position.

Remember, though you’ll want to be detailed and thorough, you’ll also want to keep in mind that keeping things brief will retain the employer’s attention. Ideally, you should include a few bullet notes that list your accomplishments, so the information is for the employer to digest.

Here is an example of an effective body paragraph:

Office Assistant Cover Letter Closing Lines

Finally, once you’ve successfully piqued the potential employer’s interest, you should end your cover letter strong by using your words to mobilize them. After all, you want them to contact you!

Here’s a good example of how to end your cover letter:

Example of an Office Assistant Cover Letter

When you put everything together, it looks a little like this:

Additional Tips

Writing a competitive cover letter can feel overwhelming, so here are some additional tips to aid your writing:

• Be excited. While office assistant work isn’t for everyone, showing that you’re enthusiastic about the job will give the employer an idea of how you’ll perform. For example, if you come across as highly interested, the employer will assume that you take your work seriously and won’t produce lazy mistakes.

• Keep it brief. As tempting as it is, you don’t want to overindulge and include far too much information in your cover letter. Employers are busy people and don’t have a whole lot of time to read your cover letter. Ideally, your cover letter shouldn’t exceed 250 words.

• Give quantifiable examples when possible. Stating that you’re skilled at time management is great and all, but will be taken far more seriously if you include a specific example of why you’re so skilled. For instance, give specific times and dates or share a memory.