When you are seeking a job as a Secretary, our comprehensive Secretary resume sample may come in handy as a template to write up your own unique resume that will grab the attention of prospective hiring managers and recruiters.

Secretaries can work in a variety of industries and in small, medium, or large companies. How to create a resume into an interview-winning document, will be easier with our: How to Make a Resume Guideline for Secretary Roles?

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Secretary Resume Examples

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Secretary Resume Writing Guide

Resume Sections

1. Contact Information: Name, Address, Phone Number, Email. Be sure to include alternative contact channels, as well as your LinkedIn profile or Facebook URL details.

2. Profile Summary: This introduction to your resume must make an impact on the reader. Include a broad overview of your background, years of industry experience, and the industry sectors of interest (1-3 sentences max).

3. Qualifications Summary: Provide accurate details about the certifications and qualifications you have completed with the institution, qualification name, and dates. Remember to add qualifications you are currently completing too. For Secretary roles, a high school diploma is often the only requirement.

4. Relevant Secretarial Experience: Your resume should have no more than two pages, therefore limit your career history to the last ten years.

5. Other Employment Experience: This will consist of permanent work history outside of secretarial duties, but still in an administrative environment. Only elaborate on your or temporary and vocational jobs. With job duties, if you have less than five years of administrative experience. Otherwise, just list job title company and duration as to make sure there are no gaps in your employment history.

6. Skills Summary/Key Skills: Incorporates keywords and terminology from the job advertisement and align them your specific skill set. This adds much-needed report to your resume.

7. Licenses / Certifications / Relevant Coursework / Training: Start with post-school diplomas or certifications if applicable. List any professional development courses, workshops or programs you completed that better prepared you to work as a Secretary such as database management, calendar management, virtual filing systems, conflict resolution, crises management techniques, and office etiquette.

What to Highlight in a Secretary Resume

Recruiters and hiring managers will form an impression regarding your resume within 6 seconds. They often merely skim through resumes due to volumes of applications. It would be best if you highlight your most important ‘’value add’’ in your career summary (see our next accomplishment section) at the top of the first page to increase your visibility as a potential contender for the role.

Firstly, a secretary is responsible for the administrative, planning, and organizational duties involved in maintaining a business. They differ from office assistants because the scope of work is concentrated on work-related duties and servicing of more than one employee as opposed to personal assistants that perform work and personal tasks and is focused on providing service to one person. Provide brief information about the department you work in and how many staff members you provide secretarial duties too.

The second aspect is the type of Secretary that you are as there are several specialized secretarial roles evident nowadays. Secretaries may be categorized as follows:

General Secretary: Conducts a variety of clerical duties such as filing, typing, faxing and copying as well as screening and transferring calls of general departments like marketing, finance, logistics, human resources and so forth.

Legal Secretary: They work in a lawyers or attorney’s office or the legal department and would typically need additional legal qualifications and certifications to prepare briefs, legal documents, summonses, and contracts.

Corporate Secretary: High specialized role where the incumbent would communicate with board members and shareholders, ensure that company reports adhere to federal and state regulations and prepare high-level reports and correspondence for annual general meetings and also oversee company registrations and documentation related to mergers and acquisitions.

Medical Secretary: In this role, the secretary would provide clerical support to clinical staff and physicians. Knowledge of medical terminology and well as hospital administration terms and also health insurance terminology is needed for this role and secretaries would often complete post-school qualifications in the clinical administration field.

Next, you need to highlight is the scope or level of your role. Do you perform routine clerical work relating to filing, drafting letters, typing documents, and taking minutes? Are you also involved in scheduling meetings, managing calendars, handling email responses and queries on behalf of your department, and operate electronic mail systems to coordinate the flow of information? You may also be given added responsibility where your judgment and decision-making skills come into play if you are the ‘’gatekeeper’’ who screens callers, walk-in visitors or email requests (basically deciding who gets into contact or is allowed a face to face appointment with a manager or supervisor and who doesn’t).

*Cool Tip for a stellar resume

Take your resume to the next level by creating feature and benefit statements of your ‘’value add’’ in a Secretarial capacity.

Skills Feature	Skills Benefit
Time Management	Prioritize tasks and projects to meet strict deadlines yet remaining as productive as possible.
Research	Know where to find relevant, valuable information quickly to either provide an accurate response to a client or assist your department with sorting through the raw data first and present them with information summaries about the topic in question.
Problem Solving	Problem-solving is a mindset that requires analytical, creative, and critical skills. Your problem-solving capabilities will be of value to your department because you can find solutions quickly and address issues efficiently to ensure the smooth operation of the office.
Communication Skills	In a secretarial role, you would be continuously communicating with others either face to face or via the telephone or email platform. Excellent written and verbal communications would ensure that you are comfortable to liaise with individuals at all corporate levels professionally and politely.
Note Taking	You will be responsible for taking minutes and notes quickly and accurately, transcribe them, and the relay to relevant stakeholders afterward in a comprehensible manner. Knowledge of shorthand is a plus along with audio transcribing software.
Self-Motivation	Displaying a positive attitude and the initiative to perform well in your job without constant supervision is a plus.
Teamwork	Secretaries who are intuitive with the personal skill to pick up on team dynamics knowing when to listen and when to offer advice are indispensable to a department.

All about Tools & Tech

Gone are the days of typewriters, little black books and post-it notes in the life of a secretary. If you are familiar with administrative software and digital tools, remember to highlight these in your resume

Time Tracking: Time Doctor Asana, Basecamp, GitHub, Salesforce, Teamwork, Trello, Zendesk,
File Sharing / Storage: Google Apps, Huddle, DropBox, 15Five, pCloud
Social Media Management: Buffer, Meet Edgar, Canva, DrumUp, PostPlanner
Scheduling: Doodle World Time Buddy, Float
Meeting Software: EzTalks, Join.me, UberConference, Brosix
Faxing: HelloFax, Gotofax
Proofreading/Editing: Grammarly, ProWriter, Hemingway, White Smoke

Secretary Career Summary

Resume objectives are old-school. Prospective employers are not interested in your personal career goals; they want to know about core competencies, valuable skills, and significant accomplishments.

Keep your career summary brief and to the point. Think of it as a half-minute proposal for the job. They want to see instantly that you can handle multiple tasks simultaneously and provide excellent support services to managers, employees, and customers, do problem-solving and type up an accurate correspondence.

Start your career summary with your years of experience in the industry and one or two of the primary duties you performed. Use the purpose of the job (usually the first paragraph of a vacancy description) as your guide to creating a resonance between your resume and the job posting.

Secondly, include a sentence about, outstanding qualities you possess that will add value to the business department. A hiring manager would be interested to see if you have “strong clerical skills, are people orientated, have excellent multi-tasking abilities and that you are pro at handling difficult situations.” It’s important to note that these qualities should be proven with examples in the professional experience section to re-enforce your message.

Career Summary examples:

Summary Example 1

Qualified and dedicated secretarial professional with intricate knowledge of office management procedures. Proficient in the latest MS Office Suite and other office administration platforms. Holds a Certified Professional Assistant (CPA) qualification. Adept at servicing large business departments of up to 100 employees.

Summary Example 2

Highly dependable and industrious Legal Secretary with more than ten years of experience at highly acclaimed legal practices. Proven ability to compile complex legal documentation and summonses on behalf of the Managing Partners. Currently completing a Para-Legal diploma and proficient in short handwriting and audio transcribing software applications.

Summary Example 3

Enthusiastic and dynamic Secretary with four years of experience working for a private hospital. Excellent at coordinating patient appointments with doctor’s consulting room capacity and a pro at handling payment queries and health insurance claims. Currently pursuing a Project Management Professional (PMP) qualification.

Secretary Job Descriptions

A prospective employer would expect to see the specific foundational duties and skillsets within a Secretary’s resume. Herewith a few examples of noteworthy Secretary duties in various industrial environments.

Examples

A General Secretary to Middle/Senior Management may:

Responsible for meeting and greeting clients, directing them to the appropriate boardrooms and organizing beverages
Manage upload and update customer files
Maintain filing system and categorize clients in alphabetical order and create associations to the relevant manager, business type and billing values
The first point of contact for all incoming and outgoing mail as well as telephone inquiries
Responsible for taking minutes during meetings and compile memo’s afterward for distribution to stakeholders
Respond to queries and complaints on behalf of managers and senior employees
Prepare relevant letters, proposals and company documentation according to pre-approved templates
Accountable for all office equipment such as scanners, copiers, and printers
Run errands and complete general clerical tasks like proofreading travel arrangements and calendar management for all departmental staff

A Corporate Secretary may:

Implement record-keeping systems
Write reports for the board and create agendas for annual shareholder meetings
Responsible for corporate compliance of company documents like registrations, stockholder correspondence, proxy notifications, disclosure information, and contract addendums
Keep updated with all state laws, security and exchange commission regulations and federal legislation regarding directing company business conduct
Prepare and plan for quarterly board meetings and taking minutes at these board meetings as well as the annual shareholder’s meeting
Advise the board of directors regarding their roles and responsibilities relevant to corporate governance
Responsible for orientation, education, and training of new directors, and preparing relevant documentation packs for the audit committees

A Medical Secretary may:

Screen incoming calls and take messages on behalf of physicians and healthcare administrators
Schedule patient appointments with doctors, radiology, and sonar departments
Managing calendars of physicians, physiotherapists, and surgeons
Write referral letters to be approved by physicians to other health care providers and administer logistics around, CT Scans, MRI’s, X-rays, lab tests and physical therapy sessions
Prepare medical reports and summaries according to patient histories, operative notes, manuscripts and correspondence
Maintain patient records and organize appropriate filing systems
Responsible for direct patient and insurance provider billing, monitoring accounts receivables, initiating collection calls, and notifications

A Legal Secretary may:

Write, record, transcribe and proofread legal documentation
Responsible for filing, organizing, scanning, copying and faxing legal documents
Schedule hearings, court depositions, and client meetings
Make travel arrangements for managing partners, attorneys, and investigators
Process invoices from vendors and suppliers
File documents with the court according to hearing deadlines
Liaise directly with attorneys, administrative personnel, courtroom staff members, clients, expert witnesses, and commercial vendors.
Train new paralegals regarding the protocols surrounding filing and submitting courtroom documents

Highlight Your Accomplishments

The achievement and accomplishment section is paramount to making it to the shortlisting pile of applications. You may either choose to include your accomplishments in a separate section of your resume or sprinkle them into your job descriptions by adding one key ‘’wow’’ factor to every role you have had.

Your goal is to think about what sets you apart, what you are most proud of, or what you achieved in your previous roles. Don’t forget the numbers. Ask yourself, “How much?” “How many? How Fast? and How Often?” questions. Then incorporate these answers into your accomplishment statements as a measure of quantification.

Example Accomplishment Statements:

– Successfully designed and implemented a digital client information database and transferred over a 1000 client profiles from paper files to electronic data reducing information retrieval time by 80%

– Accurately monitored, uploaded and updated multiple business accounts with a zero error percentage achieved during the time employed by the company and created an automated notification system to congratulate clients on their birthdays and send well wishes during special holidays.

– Instrumental contributor to the office supply inventory system which standardized purchases and office equipment and furniture orders across all 15 of the branches resulting in bulk discounts between 15% and 20%.

Secretary Education Section

The education section forms a fundamental part of your resume, regardless of whether you have a degree or not. Nowadays, secretaries have access to numerous online courses, workshop events, and diplomas or certifications that allows for career development and training.

List your post-schooling education by indicating the commencement date and completion date for diplomas, associate degrees, and bachelor degrees (for courses, you can just list the date of completion). Next, comes the full name of the qualification, the institution, the city followed by the abbreviated state name. List your high school diploma details similarly, but only include this when you have less than five years of working experience.

Here are some examples of a Secretary Resume in terms of education:

2018 – Current Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Biloa University, Online

2016 – Certified Office Assistant, International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP), Minneapolis. MI

2013 – Certified Associate in Project Management, Project Management Institute PMP), Dallas, TX

2010 – Certified Administrative Professional (CAP), International Association for Administrative Professionals (IAAP), Columbia, MO

2009 – Keyboarding and Word Processing Course, Microsoft Online

2008 – English for Business Course, Udemy, Online

2007 – Transcription Course, Central New Mexico Community College

The Secretary Resume Skills Section

The secretarial field requires specific hard (core) also called technical skills. However, employers also look for soft skills or personal skills. These are the personality traits or features that indicate to your fit as a Secretary. Make a point of including these into your summary and your accomplishment statements.

Technical Skills Examples

Educational Attainment: Secretaries typically do not have to complete any degrees (apart from Corporate Secretaries where a bachelor is mandatory). With that said, any type of post-schooling qualifications will boost your chances of getting a job. Therefore, remember to list all the relevant in-house training, diplomas, short courses, or workshops you have completed.
Technical Aptitude: Writing, Proofreading, Reporting, Screening Calls, Create Responses, Oral Communication, Time Management, Critical Thinking, Decision-making, Office Administration, Typing Speed, Short Hand Writing, Audio Transcribing, Word Processing Software, Presentation Software, Calendar Management, Office Equipment, Copying, Faxing, Scanning, Spreadsheets, Data Entry, Database Maintenance, Memo’s, Research, Report Writing, Organizing Events, Ordering Stationary, Office Furniture Purchases p

Soft Skills Sheet

Accurate	Respectful	Honest
Enthusiastic	Team Player	Informative
Friendly	Energetic	Diplomatic
Approachable	Eloquent	Organized
Helpful	Groomed	Calm
Communications	Trustworthy	Independent
Self-Motivated	Reliable	Work Ethic
Client Relations	Punctual	Flexible
Diplomatic	Multitasking	Discrete

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Secretaries

Diploma in Medical Office Administration	Office Information Technology Course	Diploma Business Records Management
CAP – Certified Administrative Professional	Executive Secretary Course	Administrative Office Associate Diploma
Certified Associate in Project Management	Transcription Course	Certified Office Assistant
Online Graduate Certificate in Research Administration	Associates Degree in Office Systems and Management	Certified Virtual Assistant (CVA)

Action Verbs for your Secretary Resume

Welcoming	Introducing	Assisting
Listening	Helping	Preparing
Answering	Scheduling	Ordering
Creating	Booking	Representing
Validating	Involving	Organizing
Resolving	Engaging	Communicating

Professional Information for Secretaries

Sectors: Various
Career Type: Administration, Support, Back Office, Clerical, Correspondence
Person type: Administrator, Organizer, Scheduler, Communicator,, Representative
Education levels: High School Diploma to Post School Diplomas
Salary indication: General Secretary $34,566 to $43,756. Legal Secretary from $35,785 to $45,345. Legal Secretary between $58,197 to $74,613 , Corporate Secretary $165,519 to $257,121
(*Salary.com)
Labor market: Estimated 5 % decline between 2016 – 2026 (*bls.gov)
Organizations: Unlimited