How to hire a senior administrative assistant

How to hire a senior administrative assistant, step by step

Here's a step-by-step senior administrative assistant hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a senior administrative assistant job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new senior administrative assistant
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a senior administrative assistant do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the senior administrative assistant you need to hire. Certain senior administrative assistant roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a senior administrative assistant to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a senior administrative assistant that fits the bill.

   This list shows salaries for various types of senior administrative assistants.

   Type of Senior Administrative Assistant	Description	Hourly rate
   Senior Administrative Assistant	Secretaries and administrative assistants perform clerical and administrative duties. They organize files, prepare documents, schedule appointments, and support other staff.	$16-29
   Administrative Support	Administrative support specialists provide different types of governmental assistance. They carry out varied clerical duties in almost all industries... Show more	$12-25
   Administrative Staff	As the administrative staff, they primarily provide administrative and secretarial support for the department. Typically, they do report-writing, filing and scheduling, and payroll... Show more	$27-48

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • PowerPoint
   • Customer Service
   • Clerical Support
   • Patients
   • Provides Administrative Support
   • SVP
   • SR
   • Calendar Management
   • Data Entry
   • Reservations
   • Excellent Organizational
   • Administrative Tasks
   • Phone Calls
   • HR

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Create and manage RFP and proposal processes for various projects.
   • Manage branches fiscal transactions including A/P, A/R, payroll, petty cash, safeguard reconciliation, and corporate reporting.
   • Coordinate calendars, schedule meetings and manage associated logistics including domestic/international travel.
   • Scheduled/Coordinate enterprise-wide WebEx conferences, facilitate team meetings, and manage executive schedules and itineraries.
   • Manage and coordinate complex internal and external meetings and/or events via videoconferencing, WebEx and teleconference calls.
   • Manage upper level calendar scheduling, arrange domestic and international travel, prepare PowerPoint presentations, correspondence and process expense reports.

   More senior administrative assistant duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your senior administrative assistant job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A senior administrative assistant can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, senior administrative assistants' average salary in oklahoma is 50% less than in new york.
   • Seniority. Entry-level senior administrative assistants 45% less than senior-level senior administrative assistants.
   • Certifications. A senior administrative assistant with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a senior administrative assistant's salary.

   Average senior administrative assistant salary

   $46,790yearly

   $22.50 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level senior administrative assistant salary

   $34,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 5, 2025

   Average senior administrative assistant salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	New York	$60,662	$29
   2	California	$60,546	$29
   3	Connecticut	$56,610	$27
   4	Massachusetts	$53,777	$26
   5	Washington	$53,770	$26
   6	Maryland	$53,167	$26
   7	District of Columbia	$51,391	$25
   8	North Carolina	$50,781	$24
   9	Virginia	$49,958	$24
   10	Illinois	$47,087	$23
   11	Colorado	$46,907	$23
   12	Oregon	$45,590	$22
   13	Georgia	$45,019	$22
   14	New Mexico	$44,352	$21
   15	Michigan	$43,843	$21
   16	Texas	$43,766	$21
   17	Minnesota	$43,543	$21
   18	Pennsylvania	$43,291	$21
   19	Arizona	$42,147	$20
   20	Ohio	$41,035	$20

   Average senior administrative assistant salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	JPMorgan Chase & Co.	$90,667	$43.59	85
   2	Huntington National Bank	$78,327	$37.66	3
   3	Mastercard	$75,482	$36.29	2
   4	Apple	$71,796	$34.52	10
   5	Eli Lilly and Company	$68,829	$33.09	1
   6	M&T Bank	$68,738	$33.05	12
   7	Novartis	$68,671	$33.01
   8	Boehringer Ingelheim	$65,194	$31.34	2
   9	BMO Capital Markets	$64,608	$31.06	10
   10	AlixPartners	$64,390	$30.96	3
   11	Vertex Pharmaceuticals	$64,233	$30.88
   12	Enterprise Bank	$63,843	$30.69	3
   13	BNY Mellon	$63,717	$30.63	17
   14	Gilead Sciences	$63,277	$30.42	1
   15	Citi	$62,573	$30.08	5
   16	BMO Harris Bank	$61,896	$29.76	5
   17	Splunk	$60,945	$29.30
   18	Dollar Bank Federal Savings Bank	$60,725	$29.19
   19	Zebra Technologies	$59,906	$28.80	1
   20	Thermo Fisher Scientific	$59,663	$28.68	12

4. Writing a senior administrative assistant job description

   A good senior administrative assistant job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a senior administrative assistant job description:

   Senior administrative assistant job description example

   o 5+ year Experience working with senior-level executives

   o Calm, professional demeanor; self-confident with an approachable “can do” customer service mindset

   o Excellent judgment and impeccable discretion; maintaining the highest level of confidentiality and work ethic

   o Strong written and verbal communication, interpersonal and team skills

   o Flexibility and resourcefulness to quickly adapt to changing priorities, detail-oriented, strong organizational skills

   o Proactively identify potential issues and suggest resolutions

   o Solid knowledge of Microsoft applications (MS Outlook, Word, Excel, Power Point, Teams, SharePoint)

   o Previous Merck experience preferred; working knowledge of Merck internal system, e.g., Concur, Ariba, Fieldglass, COMET/SAP (expense reports, travel, purchase orders, financial management)

   o Solid knowledge of travel VISA and Passport Applications processing preferred

   o Desire to inspire and motivate by teaching and learning with colleagues in an ongoing effort of continuous self-improvement, high team performance and comradery

   Responsibilities

   Schedule Management:

   • Schedule and manage meetings

   • Plan events (liaise w/vendors, venues and catering, setting up POs, formatting/sending event invites)

   • Manage and adjust agendas

   o Finance Management:

   • Manage and track invoices, set up POs

   • Reconcile monthly expenditure reports

   o New Employee Onboarding & Training

   • Schedule team orientations

   • Provide relocation/onboarding support

   • Procure home office assets via Ariba

   • Facilitate orientation, including building site tour/safety review, transportation, travel requests, etc.

   o Support to Inter-Departmental Teams

   • Offer Webinar teams support (spotlighting, effects, running polls, recordings); physical mailings (soon)

   • EngageZone/MS Teams management

   • Facilitate orientation for temporary assignment colleagues (Gig/Special Assignments)

   o Other

   • Serve as vendor liaison for issues resolution

   • Manage team sites

   • Complete UG/KW visitor registrations for large external meetings

   • Special projects assistance as needed

   • Strong commitment to collaborating with admin team

   • Strong commitment to taking direction from admin team

   • Provide support/backup support to admin team, taking on work overflow as needed, and filling in for admin team PTO

   Company DescriptionMerck Sharp & Dohme Corp. ("Merck") is a leading research-driven pharmaceutical products and services company. Merck discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets a broad range of innovative products to improve human health, directly and through its joint ventures
   
   Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as saving and improving lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery or scientific genius to work in collaboration with other like-minded colleagues to pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is always evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right senior administrative assistant for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your senior administrative assistant job on Zippia to find and recruit senior administrative assistant candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Your first interview with senior administrative assistant candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match your ideal candidate profile. If you think a candidate is good enough for the next step, you can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new senior administrative assistant

   Once you've found the senior administrative assistant candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   You should also follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that you've filled the position.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new senior administrative assistant. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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