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Administrative assistant resume examples

A strong administrative assistant resume says who you supported, what you kept running for them, which systems you used and where people relied on your judgment. The examples below are fictional. Each starts with a weak line, shows the question that improved it and what the assistant said, and ends with a bullet that uses no number they didn’t give.

Updated

Reviewed by an AI subject-matter reviewer (administrative support),

What the bullets need to show

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the core duties as answering phones, scheduling appointments and calendars, arranging meetings, handling mail, preparing memos, invoices and reports, editing documents, keeping databases and files, and basic bookkeeping (Occupational Outlook Handbook). Every applicant has some of those. What sets one resume apart is the detail around them:

  • Who you supported. How many people, at what level, in which team.
  • What you owned. Calendars, travel, expenses, meetings, the front desk, supplies, onboarding.
  • The systems. Outlook or Google Calendar, Excel, Teams or Zoom, Slack, Concur or Navan, the HR or accounting system you entered data in, and AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot or Gemini if you used them for real work, such as drafting meeting notes.
  • Your authority. What you could approve or decide yourself, and what you prepared for someone else to approve.
  • Confidentiality. The kind of sensitive material you handled, described without its contents.
  • Fixes. Something that kept going wrong until you changed how it worked.

The questions that find the bullet

Answer these for each job. Most administrative work is invisible when it goes well, so the answers are rarely on a job description.

  1. Who did you support? How many people, and at what level?
  2. What did you own from start to finish?
  3. Which systems did you use to do it?
  4. What could you decide on your own, and what needed approval?
  5. When two people you support wanted the same time or the same thing, how did you decide?
  6. What confidential material did you handle? Name the type, never the contents.
  7. What kept going wrong before you fixed it?
  8. Is anyone still using something you set up?

Before and after, with the question that changed it

Dana Brooks is a fictional administrative assistant to the CEO of a regional furniture maker. Her first drafts were one-word duties. One question each got the facts out.

Before

Managed calendars.

The question

Whose calendars, and what made them hard to manage?

They said

“I run the calendars in Outlook for the CEO and two vice presidents. They’re in three time zones, so I schedule around that, and I do a 15-minute Teams call with each of them every morning to confirm the day.”

After

Manage Outlook calendars for the CEO and two vice presidents across three time zones, confirming each day’s schedule in a 15-minute morning Teams call with each.

Before

Booked travel.

The question

How much travel, under what rules, and what happens when plans change?

They said

“I book all the travel for our 12-person sales team in Concur, inside the company travel policy. When a flight gets canceled I’m the one who rebooks it, usually from my phone at night.”

After

Book all travel for a 12-person sales team in Concur within company policy, and rebook canceled flights, often after hours.

Before

Prepared documents and reports.

The question

Which documents, for whom, and how often?

They said

“Every quarter I put together the board packet. I collect the reports from 5 department heads, put them into one Word template, and send the PDF to the board a week before the meeting.”

After

Compile the quarterly board packet from 5 department heads’ reports into one Word template and send it to the board a week before each meeting.

Before

Organized meetings.

The question

What kind of meetings, and what was your part beyond booking the room?

They said

“I organize our all-staff meeting every quarter, about 80 people. I book the room and the catering, collect agenda items, and send out the notes and action items the day after.”

After

Organize the quarterly all-staff meeting for about 80 people, booking the room and catering, collecting agenda items and sending notes with action items the next day.

Before

Handled confidential information.

The question

What kind of confidential material, and what did you do to protect it?

They said

“I process the new-hire paperwork for HR, so I see Social Security numbers and bank details. I enter it all in ADP. When I found old scans of it on our shared drive, I moved them into the HR folder and asked IT to limit that folder to HR, payroll and me.”

After

Process new-hire paperwork containing employees’ Social Security numbers and bank details in ADP; found old scans on the shared drive, moved them to the HR folder and had IT restrict it to HR, payroll and me.

Before

Ordered office supplies.

The question

What kept going wrong with supplies, and what did you change?

They said

“We kept running out of printer toner and paying for rush orders. I made a shared Excel sheet where people note when they open the last box, and I place one order every Friday. We haven’t needed a rush order since March.”

After

Set up a shared Excel supply sheet and a standing Friday order; the office has not needed a rush order for printer toner since March.

The last two have no number at all. They show judgment instead: noticing sensitive files where they didn’t belong and getting IT to lock them down, and a supply problem that stopped recurring.

Entry level, experienced and specialized roles

Entry level. Front desk, reception, retail, school office and customer service jobs use the same skills: scheduling, phones, data entry and handling money. Describe them that way, and say what you were trusted to decide.

Before

Front desk at a gym.

The question

What did the front desk job involve besides greeting people?

They said

“I checked members in, booked personal-training sessions in Mindbody and answered the phone. I could also approve cancellations and refunds up to $50 without a manager.”

After

Checked in members, booked personal-training sessions in Mindbody and answered phones at a gym front desk; approved cancellations and refunds up to $50 without a manager.

Executive assistant. The level of the people you support matters, and so does your authority: managing access to their time, preparing board materials, making routine decisions on their behalf, such as which meetings to accept. Name what you decided, not just what you scheduled.

Medical and legal offices. These roles need the field’s terminology and its privacy rules, such as HIPAA in a medical office and attorney-client privilege in a law firm, and the BLS notes they may need extra training. Name the systems you used, such as Epic or a court e-filing system, describe the records you handled by type, never by patient or client, and don’t imply you made clinical or legal decisions.

A complete example

Dana’s resume, put together. Every experience bullet is one of the rewrites above, word for word. Her cover letter for an executive assistant job is in how to end a cover letter.

Dana Brooks

Grand Rapids, MI · phone · email

Summary

Administrative assistant to a CEO and two vice presidents, handling calendars across time zones, the quarterly board packet, travel and confidential HR paperwork.

Experience

Administrative Assistant to the CEO, Cedar Lane Furniture. 2021 to present.

  • Manage Outlook calendars for the CEO and two vice presidents across three time zones, confirming each day’s schedule in a 15-minute morning Teams call with each.
  • Book all travel for a 12-person sales team in Concur within company policy, and rebook canceled flights, often after hours.
  • Compile the quarterly board packet from 5 department heads’ reports into one Word template and send it to the board a week before each meeting.
  • Organize the quarterly all-staff meeting for about 80 people, booking the room and catering, collecting agenda items and sending notes with action items the next day.
  • Process new-hire paperwork containing employees’ Social Security numbers and bank details in ADP; found old scans on the shared drive, moved them to the HR folder and had IT restrict it to HR, payroll and me.
  • Set up a shared Excel supply sheet and a standing Friday order; the office has not needed a rush order for printer toner since March.

Front Desk Associate, Ironleaf Fitness Studio. 2018 to 2021.

  • Checked in members, booked personal-training sessions in Mindbody and answered phones at a gym front desk; approved cancellations and refunds up to $50 without a manager.

Education

Associate degree in Business Administration, Millbrook Valley Community College. 2018.

Skills

Software: Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, Concur, ADP

Office: calendars, travel, board packet, new-hire paperwork

What not to claim

  • Your executive’s results. “Helped grow revenue” describes the company. Describe what you made possible for the person you supported.
  • Time saved that nobody measured. “Saved the CEO hours every week” invites a question you can’t answer. Say what you took off their plate instead.
  • Budget authority you didn’t have. Processing expenses is not managing a budget. Say which one you did.
  • Certifications you don’t hold. List a Microsoft Office Specialist or similar certificate only if you passed the exam.
  • A title you didn’t have. If your title was Administrative Assistant and you did executive-level work, keep the real title and let the bullets show the level. A reference check reports the title on file.
  • Confidential contents. Board topics, salaries, personnel issues and anything your employer hasn’t made public stay off the page.

From your answers to bullets, in Hirova

Hirova, an AI resume builder for iPhone, asks the same kind of questions about your work, sets your answers as bullets, and shows the words behind every number so you can confirm it. Nothing reaches your draft until you do.

  1. Import or start fresh. Bring in a PDF or a photo of your resume. Hirova reads it on your iPhone; the file is not uploaded.
  2. Answer a few questions. Three to five short questions about what you owned and what changed. Type or dictate, and skip any you like.
  3. See your words set as bullets. Hirova rewrites your answers as resume lines in a consistent voice.
  4. Check every fact. Each title, date and number shows the words it came from. Nothing reaches your draft until you confirm it.
  5. Export a PDF. A typeset, text-based PDF you can send from the share sheet.

Your first resume is free, including the PDF in the Minimal design. Hirova Pro adds a tailored version for each job posting, with a cover letter for each. Hirova Pro is $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year in the US. The App Store shows your local price before you buy.

Questions

What should I put on an administrative assistant resume?
Who you supported and at what level, what you owned for them, the systems you used and what you could decide yourself. Under each job, three to six bullets that show those, and a Skills section with the software you used.
What skills does an administrative assistant need on a resume?
The software you used, such as Outlook, Excel, Teams or Concur, and office skills such as calendar management, travel booking and meeting notes. Back each with a bullet. See skills for your resume.
How do I write an administrative assistant resume with no experience?
Use the jobs and roles you have had that involved scheduling, phones, data entry or handling money, such as a front desk, retail or school office job, and say what you were trusted to decide in each.
Should I put my typing speed on my resume?
Only if you have a recent test result and the posting asks for one. Otherwise the systems you used and what you produced in them say more.