Impress your future employer with your intelligence, organizational skills and communication abilities during your administrative assistant job interview. An administrative assistant is an extremely important position because this job requires you to be the gatekeeper of the organization, organize data, files and schedules, plan and arrange appointments, communicate between executives and colleagues and execute word processing, spreadsheet design and report creation.
Discuss Your Successes
Employers want to know if you will be a proactive, effective administrative assistant. A key component to being an exceptional administrative assistant is the ability to handle complex, stressful situations. Describe a situation from your last job or school in which you handled a conflict, met a difficult deadline or made an intuitive decision about assist a client or your boss.
Use specific dates and examples when describing your success story. Employers want to see if you are able to adapt to a wide variety of situations, people and environments.
Dress for the Job
The administrative assistant is typically the first face prospective clients and other employees see before meeting with your boss. Employers typically want administrative assistants to wear business attire that includes classic suits, conservative dresses or tailored pant outfits. Heavy make-up, loud nail polish, wild hair styles and excessive amounts of jewelry are discouraged.
Wear classic, conservative clothing to your interview, such as a business suit, to communicate that you are the serious about landing the job. Bring a leather briefcase or folder to hold your resume or any work samples and keep your accessories light.
Have Answers to the Tough Questions
You will be asked about typing skills, computer knowledge, filing systems and organizational habits. Proactively prepare your answers for typical administrative assistant questions by reviewing and rehearsing your answers.
Ask a friend to conduct several mock interviews with you to polish and hone your answers. Anticipate questions such as how do you handle confidential information, what are the different means by which documents can be filed and you schedule, plan and ensure all aspects of a meeting are met?
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