Whether you’re looking to get your first job as an administrative assistant, or you’ve been working in this role for decades, your resume is a hugely significant part of your application.
It’s important to remember how the process works in real life. In an ideal world, your potential new employer would sit down with a cup of coffee and thoroughly read every word you’ve written on your resume.
They’d give every sentence a lot of thought and realize that you’re the candidate they’re looking for.
But, you’re a needle in a haystack
In reality, though, things look quite different. Administrative assistant positions are highly popular. In general, most jobs in this industry don’t require any specific qualifications, and this massively increases the number of applications.
There could be hundreds of applicants, and that means hundreds of resumes to sift through.
Is anyone going to read all of them, carefully, to the very last word? Probably not. It’s possible that a member of staff will be tasked to whittle down the huge pile of resumes to create a shortlist, so the person making the ultimate decision isn’t overwhelmed.
How much effort will they put into this process? Will they simply glance at each one and make a quick decision?
That’s highly possible, so you need to prepare for this.
What criteria will be used to separate the wheat from the chaff?
So imagine that person sifting through 362 resumes. What will make them put one resume in the ‘maybe’ pile, and throw another in the trash?
Of course, everyone will work differently, but there are some factors that are likely to be at play here.
An administrative assistant needs to be skilled at paying attention to every detail, so a resume with a spelling error could be instantly rejected, despite the candidate being highly experienced or well qualified.
It may be that any overly lengthy resumes are dropped, or those that don’t instantly highlight the skills and experience of the author.
Be the golden needle in the haystack
You need your resume to stand out from the crowd, so it pushes up through the pack and becomes a contender for the job you’re applying for. Your resume needs to speak for you before you get the chance to truly shine at your interview.
Let’s take a closer look at how to write an attention-grabbing resume for an administrative assistant role…
Keep it short
Despite all your amazing skills or your years of experience, you need to keep your resume to the point.
A three-page long resume just isn’t going to be read, it’s going to be glanced at, and if your incredibly relevant experience or your degree in administration is over on page 2, the reader may never get there to see it.
This takes us on to the next valuable point…
Ensure the most important information is clearly visible
Think about the weighting of the information on your resume. What is most important and most likely to get you the job?
What information on that sheet of paper puts you at an advantage over the other applicants? It could be your IT skills, perhaps you’ve previously worked for a high-profile company, or maybe you have an administrative assistant certification.
This needs to stand out from the page. It’s advisable to keep your resume to one page, but if this isn’t possible, then you should certainly have this vital info on page one. You can’t presume that anything past the first page will receive anything more than a cursory glance.
A personal statement should be kept short, and relevant. Put yourself in the shoes of the person hiring a new assistant. What are they going to need? What will they be looking out for? Someone with a qualification in Microsoft Excel, or someone who enjoys sailing at the weekend?
It’s okay to briefly mention your other interests, particularly if they bear some relevance to the job you’re applying for, for example, you may do admin work for a charity, or create websites for a hobby, but always keep the most important information at the forefront.
Double and triple-check for errors
Anyone can make an error, and most of us do. A slip of the finger, predictive text deciding we mean ‘ailment’ instead of ‘assistant’. When you put a lot of time and thought into a document, it can be easy to simply not see an error that is instantly obvious to someone else.
When you feel you’ve completed your resume, don’t be in a rush to send it off to a dozen different companies. Put it aside for a while and come back to it. It’s surprising how often you’ll find a typo you just hadn’t seen earlier.
You should also get another pair of eyes on it. Perhaps someone else will be able to spot an error – a misspelling or grammatical mistake that could have cost you a job.
The more people that take a look at your resume the better. As well as spotting errors, they may also have some useful suggestions for improving your layout or content.
Mention all your key skills
Think long and hard about all the skills, experience and qualifications you have that could be of benefit to a potential employer, and be sure to add them to your resume.
Look back over all your previous jobs and think about all aspects of the work you did. What were your responsibilities? What software packages and platforms did you use? Do you have any extra skills that other applicants may not have such as social media management skills, a talent for web design, experience with managing large teams or a qualification in bookkeeping?
Anything relevant, that makes you stand out from the crowd, should be clearly visible on your resume.
Keep it modern and stylish, yet simple
The design of your resume will also play a part. Research the current trends for resumes to make sure yours doesn’t look old-fashioned.
If you’ve been out of the job market for several years, your resume may appear dated. But don’t take trends too far and don’t try too hard. Unless you’re applying for a position at an edgy new media company, steer clear of unusual fonts or graphical gimmicks!
Don’t forget to add your contact information
Finally, it sounds really obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people forget to put a contact email address or phone number on their resume.
Even if you’ve supplied this information on an application form or cover letter, there’s no guarantee that your resume won’t become separated from these other documents.
If they like your resume but can’t easily contact you, they’re unlikely to launch an investigation to find your details, they’ll simply move on and invite another candidate to interview instead.
