Difficult Office Support Assistant Interview Preparation Guide

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Your prospective employer wants to know how you respond to setbacks. This reveals a lot about your drive and ability to learn from your mistakes. When you encounter administrative assistant interview questions and answers like this, it is imperative to keep your reply positive. Focus more on how you overcame the setback or issues. Furthermore, show how it made you a more effective professional.

Depending on the size of your prospective employer, you make have to work with another or multiple administrative assistants. Together, you will manage the necessary administrative tasks to make the enterprise as effective as possible. Give an example of how you were able to delegate and focus as an integral part of a team. Keep the anecdote short, but make your point.

For a long time I really enjoyed working for my current employee and I have felt that I learnt a lot from the role and also from my manager. However, the job is limited and doesn't provide me with much room to grow (you can expand this for what ever reason fits your circumstances). I feel that this position will give me the opportunity to expand my skill set and also move forward in my career.

Not all administrators need to be excellent problem solvers so if you are not the best, be honest and say so. You could say that you are not good at solving problems but you understand the skills of your colleagues well and will always be able to persuade somebody to assist.

Ideally you will be able to touch type well, so say yes to this. Shorthand is a dying art and fewer people are learning how to do this well. If you have the opportunity to learn it, then do so, because some managers like their administrators to be able to take down shorthand.

I am very well organized in my head which I can translate perfectly in actions. This strength alone has helped me secure a permanent position as an administrative assistant after going through training for just three months.

When I accepted the position at ABC Company, there was no centralized filing system. Trying to find important documents was nearly impossible. I identified the problems with the current filing system, and put in place a new, more efficient system so that document retrieval became faster and easier.

Answer that by staying organised and keeping a strict diary you find that stress does not become a real issue. As soon as you identify a possible delay due to high work volumes you raise this with your manager to see if the work can either be reallocated or given priority.

Say that you deal with authority as you deal with customers - with integrity, professionalism and politeness.

At this point, salary is not an issue for me. I'm more concerned with the position and the opportunity to learn.

I am a people person. I like to work with people. If I couldn't, it would be difficult.

Multitasking is a necessary part of an administration job, so say that you enjoy multitasking and the challenge of ensuring that multiple functions and jobs are completed accurately and on time is part of what motivates you in your work.

If you have experience, mention the packages you have used. If not, get some training in the most important packages before your interview. Ask your recruitment consultant what are the best packages to learn.

Yes, I possess Houston State Driver's license with no tickets

When you are asked about your strengths, you want to relate your response to skills and abilities that are relevant to your prospective position. Perhaps you are excellent at speaking and working with clients or keeping the office impeccably organized. Either of these can be highly prized in the right environment. Frame your strengths as an asset to your prospective employer.

If pushed too far you would consider speaking to your manager about workloads and expectations and try to resolve the situation.

Meeting people and speaking to customers is often a vital part of being an administrator. Say that you enjoy talking to people and that interaction with other people is often what makes the work most interesting.

Most people try to get this job simply because it is convenient, offers routine duties and clean working environment. And a decent salary of course…

Well, we naturally apply for a job to earn money (nobody would work full time for free). But earning money should not resonate in your answer.

Oppositely, you should try to convince the hiring manager that you really want to have this job. Motivation is crucial for every administrative assistant, do not forget on it. If you want to get hired, you can't look like someone who takes this job as a last option only.

ABC is a small company with limited opportunities for advancement. While I have thoroughly enjoyed my work there, I decided it was time to move on in order to advance.

Say that an administrator plays an important role in ensuring that diaries are properly managed and that all outgoing correspondence is well written and all incoming correspondence is read and delivered to the relevant managers quickly.

Yes, these timings are perfect for me and I am readily available and willing to work overtime and on weekends.

Administrative assistants are typically pretty busy people. A big pile of papers on a table of an assistant is a common picture we see, not only in the films. And obviously, there's "a mess" in their computer too :)

Interviewers are aware of it and try to find out if you are able to prioritize your tasks, or to work on different tasks simultaneously. Your goal is to convince them about your time management skills, an ability to organize work and recognize the most important tasks to take care of immediately.

I enjoy travelling. It will be my pleasure to travel for official work.

There were several things that I had to fit into one work day including taking phone calls, directing visitors to the right departments, taking minutes of meetings, assisting in procurement of supplies and equipment and of course managing mail.

This question is much more difficult as it sounds. While interviewing people for office jobs, I saw many candidates get caught in the trap while answering this question. You know, all job applicants try to picture themselves in a best possible light. So when they should evaluate their own skills with MS Word or MS Excel (or another common office software), they give themselves 9 or even a perfect 10.

This would be all right, if they did deliver on their promises. What we did in interviews, and what many companies do until today, is letting the applicants to complete a practical task on computer, right after they answered this question. They had to execute few calculations in MS Excel, or typewrite something to MS word and format the text… We could see how fast they typed and what methods they used when working on a computer. And many who gave themselves 9 or 10, worked actually very poorly, or weren't even able to finish the task in time.