Admin assistant CV example

An admin assistant CV has to prove one thing above all others: that nothing goes missing when it passes through you. Filing, correspondence, diaries and records are jobs nobody notices until they are wrong, which makes them awkward to write about. So most admin CVs end up as a list of verbs. Answering, filing, booking, supporting. Any of several hundred applicants could have written it. The example below does the opposite. It names the systems, the volumes and the standard the work was held to, so a reader can picture the desk you sat at. Every detail in it is the sort of thing you already know and probably left off.

Read three admin adverts in a row and the same four things come back.

The software, by name. Adverts tend to list what the office actually runs on: Outlook and Excel, a finance or purchase-order system, a records or case management system. A CV that says 'IT literate' answers none of it.

The volume and the rhythm. Supporting two partners is a different job from covering a front desk through an admissions week. Numbers here are not showing off. They are the only way a reader can size the role you held.

What you were trusted with. Confidential files, safeguarding records, client money, unsupervised diary decisions, a petty cash float. Say which, because 'general admin duties' hides all of it.

How you kept it accurate. A checking routine, a naming convention, a handover note, a reconciliation you ran before a return went out. An office that has lost a file reads this part closely. 'Attention to detail' is a claim. A routine is evidence.

'420 pupils in the school management information system' does work that 'used school systems' cannot. It gives a size, a named system and a record type in eight words. A legal practice reading it will not care about attendance coding, but it will believe you can hold a caseload of files straight.

'Reconciled weekly against the register before the local authority return went out' is a checking routine with a deadline attached. Accuracy is the whole job and it is almost never evidenced, because people describe the task instead of the control around it.

'Drafting replies for the head teacher's approval' sets the level honestly. You wrote them, someone else signed them off. That is more credible than implying the decision was yours, and it still shows written judgement.

'Retiring 11 duplicate folders' is an improvement with a number on it, and it is deliberately small. Admin improvements usually are. One true, specific, slightly boring change reads better than a sentence about streamlining processes.

Before you write a word, sit down with your last role and list the boring specifics.

The systems, and your actual level in each. Outlook and Word are assumed. Say which of these you ran: a finance or purchase-order system, a CRM, a school management information system, a case or practice management system, a room or fleet booking system, an HR record system. Note whether you were a user, the office super-user, or the person who trained new starters.

The record types. Personnel files, pupil records, patient lists, client matters, invoices, contracts, minutes. Each carries its own retention rule and its own consequence for getting it wrong.

The volumes. Emails a week, calls a day, invoices a month, meetings minuted a term, staff or fee earners supported, visitors signed in.

The routines you owned. The monthly return, the audit, the archive, the starter and leaver checklist, the stationery or facilities budget you kept inside.

Copying out the job description. 'Answering telephone and email enquiries' is what the advert said. It is not what you did with it, or how much of it there was.

Listing every piece of software you have ever opened. A 20-item skills row reads as padding. Six systems you could be questioned on reads as a working administrator.

Dropping the sector vocabulary. A school office runs on terms, returns, cover and safeguarding. A legal office runs on file opening, engagement letters, billing and archiving. Both are administration. They do not sound the same on paper, and a reader in one will not translate for you.

Hiding the confidential work entirely. You cannot name the pupil or the matter. You can say you handled confidential HR correspondence, or worked to a retention schedule.

Claiming 'excellent attention to detail' on a page with a typo in it. This is the one role where the document is part of the evidence. Read it aloud before you send it.

Admin adverts are unusually literal. The essential criteria are often a plain list of systems and duties. Answer them in order.

1. Use their nouns. If the advert says 'diary management', do not write 'calendar coordination'. Borrow their word wherever it is honestly yours.
2. Move the matching setting to the front. Applying to a GP practice, the patient records work belongs in the first clause of the bullet, not the fourth.
3. Answer the criteria you do not obviously meet. If they want purchase orders and you raised them under another name, say so plainly rather than hoping a reader infers it.

Career Auntie's CV review reads your CV against one advert and returns between five and fifteen findings, each quoting the line that triggered it. On an admin application the one worth looking for is an essential criterion you answered in your words rather than theirs.