How To Become A Principal Secretary: What It Is and Career Path

What is a principal secretary and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a principal secretary. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.2 an hour? That's $33,699 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -8% and produce -286,900 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScorePrincipal SecretaryUS Average

Salary

2.6

Avg. Salary $33,699

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.0

Growth rate -8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.73%

Asian 3.83%

Black or African American 9.26%

Hispanic or Latino 16.21%

Unknown 3.87%

White 66.10%

Gender

female 94.95%

male 5.05%

Age - 52

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 - 52

Stress level

6.0

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.4

Complexity level is basic

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.6

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a principal secretary

Explore principal secretary education requirements

Most common principal secretary degrees

Bachelor's

38.7 %

Associate

27.3 %

High School Diploma

19.1 %

Start to develop specific principal secretary skills

Skills	Percentages
Purchase Orders	16.19%
Schedule Appointments	12.81%
Office Equipment	7.90%
Financial Reports	6.45%
Word Processing	6.26%

Complete relevant principal secretary training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New principal secretaries 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 a principal secretary based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real principal secretary resumes.

Research principal secretary duties and responsibilities

Manage high volume of requests and correspondence from executives and colleagues, pharmaceutical representatives, patients and outside physicians.
Maintain compliance with HIPPA law.
Work closely with Medicare and Medicaid.
Maintain confidentiality laws of HIPAA and OSHA.

Get principal secretary experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become a principal secretary. The most common roles before becoming a principal secretary include secretary, administrative assistant team lead and office manager.

Prepare your principal secretary resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your principal secretary 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 a principal secretary resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable principal secretary resume templates

Build a professional principal secretary 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 principal secretary resume.