Profession secretary

Secretaries (general) perform routine clerical and administrative functions such as drafting correspondence, scheduling appointments, organising and maintaining paper and electronic files or providing information to callers and visitors.

Personality Type

• Conventional / Enterprising

Tasks secretary

• Answer, screen and direct telephone calls, take messages and handle enquiries and requests.
• Greet visitors and direct them to the appropriate persons.
• Open, sort and distribute incoming correspondence, including faxes and email, and prepare responses to correspondence containing routine enquiries.
• Produce correspondence, memos, reports, presentations and other documents from drafts, handwritten copies, machine dictation, etc., e.g. using computers with a variety of software packages.
• File and retrieve documents, correspondence, records and reports, and set up filing systems.
• Make appointments and keep diaries.
• Organize travel arrangements, business itineraries, conferences and social functions.
• Prepare agendas and make arrangements for meetings, attend meetings and take minutes.
• Order and maintain office supplies.
• Keep informed how to use office equipment such as computers, fax machines, photocopiers, printers, scanners and phone systems, and report about non-functioning equipment.
• Serve refreshments, e.g. to managers and visitors.

Related professions secretary

• Administrative secretary
• Executive secretary
• Legal secretary
• Medical secretary or receptionist
• Minutes secretary
• Office manager
• Personal assistant
• Project secretary
• Secretary, all other
• Team or department secretary

Knowledge

• Company policies

  The set of rules that govern the activity of a company.

Skills

• Maintain internal communication systems

  Maintain an effective internal communication system among employees and department managers.

• Organise business documents

  Put together documents coming from the photocopier, the mail, or the daily operations of businesses.

• Handle mail

  Handle mail considering data protection issues, health and safety requirements, and specifications of different kinds of mail.

• Fill out forms

  Fill out forms of a different nature with accurate information, legible calligraphy, and within a timely manner.

• Keep task records

  Organise and classify records of prepared reports and correspondence related to the performed work and progress records of tasks.

• Process commissioned instructions

  Process instructions, usually oral ones, provided by managers and directives on actions required to be made. Take note, inquire, and take action on the commissioned requests.

• Communicate by telephone

  Liaise via telephone by making and answering calls in a timely, professional and polite manner.

• Organise facilities for office personnel

  Manage the booking schedule for conferences and meetings of internal or external nature. Shop around and book reservations for travelling or hosting for office personnel.

• Monitor staff absences

  Keep an overview of the employees' vacations, sick leaves and absences, register these in the agenda and file the necessary documents and certificates.

• Manage personnel agenda

  Schedule and confirm appointments for the personnel of the office, mostly managers and directive employees, with external parties.

• Disseminate internal communications

  Disseminate internal communications using the different communication channels that a company has at its disposal.

• File documents

  Create a filing system. Write a document catalogue. Label documents etc.

• Disseminate messages to people

  Receive, process, and pass messages to people coming from phone calls, faxes, postal, and emails.

• Perform office routine activities

  Program, prepare, and perform activities required to be performed everyday in offices such as mailing, receiving supplies, updating managers and employees, and keeping operations running smoothly.

• Use microsoft office

  Possess the ability to work with the standard programs contained in Microsoft Office at a capable level. Create a document and do basic formatting, insert page breaks, create headers or footers, and insert graphics, create automatically generated tables of contents and merge form letters from a database of addresses (usually in Excel). Create auto-calculating spreadsheets, create images, and sort and filter data tables.

• Draft corporate emails

  Prepare, compile, and write mails with the adequate information and an appropriate language to make internal or external communications.

• Communicate schedules to the people concerned

  Convey relevant scheduling information. Present the schedule to the persons concerned, and inform them of any schedule changes. Approve the schedules and verify that everyone has understood the information sent to them.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB