Institute of Secretarial Studies

AN OVERVIEW OF A SECRETARIAL CAREER

The position of the office professional has greatly developed as technology continues to be relied upon in most offices throughout the country. A wide range of duties that were once given to managerial and professional staff are now delegated to secretaries and administrative assistants due to office automation and organisational restructuring. Currently several secretaries and administrative assistants train and inform new staff, perform Internet research, and use and troubleshoot the latest technology in offices. In spite of these recent changes, their usual and fundamental responsibilities have stayed constant—conducting and organising an office’s administrative duties and events, as well as receiving and handling information for distribution to staff and clients.

Secretaries’ and administrative assistants’ responsibilities include various administrative and clerical duties needed to run a company efficiently and smoothly. Some duties include: serving as an office information manager, arranging and scheduling meetings or appointments, organising and preserving paper and computer files, managing projects, handling travel arrangements, performing research, and distributing information through the use of telephones, mail, and e-mail.

Many machines—facsimile machines, photocopiers, and telephone systems—are used by secretaries and administrative assistants to aid them in these tasks. Additionally, secretaries and administrative assistants work on personal computers to develop spreadsheets; write correspondence; supervise databases; and produce presentations, reports, and documents as they use desktop publishing software and computer graphics. All of these tasks were previously performed by managers and professionals. Concurrently, these other office workers have taken the responsibility for several tasks traditionally left to secretaries and administrative assistants, such as typing and answering phones. Secretaries and administrative assistants have the time to help out members of the executive staff, now that they aren't usually required to dictate and type. In numerous companies, secretaries and administrative assistants work cooperatively with each other in order to work be flexible and helpful to one another.

Different levels of experience and job titles will carry different responsibilities. For example, Executive secretaries and administrative assistants maintain a small amount of clerical tasks as opposed to other positions. Their tasks include basic organising of conference calls and scheduling of meetings as well as more complex responsibilities such as performing research, planning statistical reports, teaching employees, and directing other clerical staff. A few secretaries and administrative assistants—such as legal and medical secretaries—must have substantial knowledge of technical terminology and procedures in order to carry out highly specialised work. Under the direction of an attorney or paralegal, for instance, legal secretaries organise correspondence and official documents such as summonses, complaints, motions, responses, and subpoenas. Additionally, they may assess legal journals and aid with legal research, such as confirming quotes and credentials in legal briefs. Medical secretaries record dictation, get correspondence ready, and aid physicians or medical scientists with reports, lectures, articles, and seminar proceedings. Medical secretaries may also keep track of basic medical histories, set up patients to be hospitalised, and order materials. The majority of medical secretaries must have good knowledge regarding insurance regulations, billing practices, and hospital or laboratory measures. Other technical secretaries helping engineers or scientists might organise correspondence, keep up the technical library, and search and edit resources used for scientific papers.