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

What is a senior administrative secretary and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Anne McConnell Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior administrative secretary. For example, did you know that they make an average of $20.26 an hour? That's $42,138 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -8% and produce -286,900 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a senior administrative secretary?

Anne McConnell Ph.D.

Professor, West Virginia State University

I would say it's important to be very attentive to the way you communicate with your employers, managers, and co-workers. Even sending an e-mail can be an opportunity to demonstrate your professionalism and communication skills. Some people think that no one knows how to write anymore, or how to communicate in a professional way. I don't think that's true. But we don't always think about how our writing can be a tool to communicate our competence and seriousness. If you know how to write and communicate professionally-which college grads do-then make sure to demonstrate that in the workplace.

ScoreSenior Administrative SecretaryUS Average

Salary

3.3

Avg. Salary $42,138

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 95.20%

male 4.80%

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 a senior administrative secretary

Explore senior administrative secretary education requirements

Most common senior administrative secretary degrees

Bachelor's

45.1 %

Associate

26.9 %

High School Diploma

11.4 %

Start to develop specific senior administrative secretary skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	24.63%
Word Processing	15.75%
Dictation	12.64%
IDX	7.46%
Routine Correspondence	5.29%

Complete relevant senior administrative secretary training and internships

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

Research senior administrative secretary duties and responsibilities

Manage and coordinate complex internal and external meetings and/or events via videoconferencing, WebEx and teleconference calls.
Prepare administrative payroll using Lawson.
Supervise student workers including payroll and scheduling.
Plan seamless door-to-door international itinerary logistics, and reconcile expenses requiring currency and language conversions in a fast pace environment

Get senior administrative secretary experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a senior administrative secretary. The most common roles before becoming a senior administrative secretary include administrative assistant, secretary team lead and administrator secretary.

Prepare your senior administrative secretary resume

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

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Build a professional senior administrative 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 senior administrative secretary resume.