The administrative assistant salary varies due to several factors. While location is important, your skills and qualifications are also essential criteria in determining your salary.
People who lack college credentials to join a service of choice can now move up the corporate ladder with administrative assistant jobs. If you have a high school diploma and also have some business knowledge, you could start working as a business administrative assistant. Not only will it help you earn good money, but you can also start learning about corporate culture as you grow.
Qualifications and skills
For the administrative assistant position, companies generally look for candidates with exceptional typing and data entry skills, computer skills, command of communication (oral), and excellent spelling and grammar. If you have failed to gain this knowledge in your high school, you can try some certificate courses or 2-year programs offered at various community colleges and business schools. With these qualifications and skills, you can expect an average salary of $ 41,650 per year, according to reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2009.
Excellent employers
The best place to find administrative assistant jobs is to look for workplaces or employers that hire the highest number of employees in this field. These mainly include universities and colleges; state government and local government offices. Colleges have been estimated to employ more than 91,000 administrative assistants per year and pay an average salary of $ 20 per hour. There are other places, like Postal Services, that offer a pay of $ 30 an hour, which is the highest. Computer and peripheral equipment manufacturers also require administrative assistants, and their average salary is $ 27 per hour.
Talent and experience
To earn the highest rank of administrative assistant salary, you must improve your skills by learning things that are in high demand. For example, knowledge of computers, particularly Microsoft Office, is the most necessary experience that helps to communicate efficiently. If you have a solid knowledge of computers, you can easily earn compensation of $ 30,000 to $ 44,000 per year. This is the PayScale report, as of 2011. Accounting is a basic requirement that will help keep and maintain the company’s books, and it pays an average salary of $ 30,000 to $ 41,600 per year. Another notable area of work is customer relationship and management, which enables you to create goodwill with customers and helps increase demand for the company’s products and services. You can easily earn a salary of $ 67,000 to $ 38,000 a year.
Growth opportunities
As administrative assistants, people can grow over time, with their knowledge and skills of the company, eventually giving them greater responsibilities and high salaries. As you begin the administrative assistant job, you will grow, step by step, to become an office manager. You can also become a professional trainer, with experiences teaching specific computer applications, for which you may be called upon to various schools as new assistants. If you have a certification from a national organization that can document your knowledge on paper, you may even get better compensation. Once you become a Certified Administrative Professional, you have a better chance of getting higher compensation.
Average salary growth for administrative assistants has been good over the years. The number is likely to increase in the coming years.