Administrative Assistant Interview Questions

The administrative assistants are real office superheroes! They are able to work in multitask and high-stress environments along with juggling a bunch of office supplies. And that’s not even their capacity limit. Such an expert is indispensable in matters of project tracking and organization, online research, and schedule management. What is most important, this specialist must be intelligent enough to act as your official representative at any corporate level.

To find such a gem, you’ll have to dig the mine of talents yourself. Or, you can ease the pain by taking the following Administrative Assistant Interview Questions. With their help, defining the potential applicant’s technical and interpersonal skills has become effortless.

Low Start: Hard-Skills

To conduct an interview at the maximum performance, ask your current admin assistant to draft their weekly list of common tasks. Pay careful attention to what software they use and how they use it. Then generate your own list of necessary skills to find in a job seeker’s CV. After you manage the skills list, proceed with composing questions. Make sure your administrative assistant interview questions touch upon the candidate’s hard skills and their area of execution:

• How do you assess you MS Office skills?
• Which system is preferable for you, Mac or PC?
• Provide some examples of your MS Excel literacy. What Excel operations you’re familiar with?

If you’re also looking for a proficient travel coordinator, ask a job seeker the following:

• Are you experienced in international/domestic travel coordination?
• Describe the process of handling travel visa problems if stumbled upon any.
• Have you ever dealt with expense reports? In what way?

Here’s a perfect general inquiry to get a deeper insight into the potential admin assistant’s job skills:

• Do you consider your administrative assistant work experience has transcended the pure administration? In what way?

Such question pushes the interviewee to a detailed response, whereas you’ll be able to learn more about their previous experience in bookkeeping, teambuilding, phone screening, and office management.

Pace Acceleration: Soft Skills

If you’re satisfied with the job seeker’s technical skills, it’s time to evaluate their interpersonal skills. This tricky query could be a good start, as the candidate may unintentionally reveal their attitude:

• How would your previous boss describe your management abilities?

Except that, concentrate on the interviewee’s time-management and project management experience:

• What is your attitude toward deadlines?
• Speak about a time when you needed to prioritize the tasks. How did you manage it?
• Do you find interacting with internal/external customers challenging? Why?
• What project was the most interesting for you to work on?
• Speak about the recent complex organizational project you had to manage.

Finish the job interview with a few questions about the applicant’s last employment and corporate culture:

• How can you describe collaboration with an actual/previous manager?
• What qualities should an administrative assistant possess?
• What could derail you from leaving a job?
• Provide us with your vision of an ideal working environment.

The key to a successful interview: introductory part, in which you should speak about yourself and your demands; the body, when you focus on the applicant’s soft and hard skills by asking them various questions; and the final part, where you answer the interviewee’s questions if any.