1. Job Description examples – Administrative/Secretarial Staff
Section 1: Main Job Purpose
An example for a Receptionist / Secretary / Executive Assistant might be:-
“To provide full personal assistant and administrative support to the management
team”.
An example for a Finance Assistant might be:-
“Responsible for the accurate day to day financial management of a number of
Departmental accounts, involving the preparation and monitoring of budgets, and
investigation of variances”.
An example for a Departmental Secretary might be:-
“Provision of secretarial and administrative services to the academic staff of the
Department and the Senior Administrator, in relation to all activities connected with
the Department's research programme”.
An example for a Senior Administrator in an academic department might be:-
“Under the overall direction of the Head of Department, to take overall responsibility
for the provision of administrative support to the Department, and to act as line
manager to all support staff in the department”.
An example for an Assistant Accountant might be:-
“To provide a professional financial service to the Faculty, including the provision
and monitoring of monthly accounts, and to assist in the production of University
financial statements”.
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2. Section 2: Statements of Responsibility
An example for a Departmental Secretary might be:-
“To word-process exam papers annually with attention to detail, and meet pre-
arranged timescales”.
An example for a Secretary might be:-
“To maintain Departmental office supplies (stationary, water etc) and order when
necessary, ensuring that essential supplies are always available”.
An example for Senior Administrator might be:-
“To supervise secretarial staff; including holding staff reviews, managing
performance issues, allocating work on a regular basis, assisting with training
needs etc”.
An example for a Senior Administrator in an academic department might be:-
“To assist the Head of Department in agreeing a budget with the University’s
finance section and to monitor the department’s expenditure against that budget”.
An example for a Secretarial Assistant in a department might be:-
“Assist in providing a secretarial service for the whole Department including typing
referees reports, minutes of meetings, exam papers, forms and labels, including
mail-merging documents and e-mail”.
An example for a Receptionist might be:-
“Answering the telephone, booking appointments for the Director/Head of
Department and management team, dealing with enquiries from the public, staff
students etc and passing messages on to other members of staff”.
An example for a Clerical Assistant / Office Assistant might be:-
“To assist the Department with a range of clerical duties to include filing, envelope
filling and photocopying”.
An example for a Departmental Secretary / Executive Assistant / Secretarial Assistant
might be:-
“To operate the Departmental postgraduate admissions system so that applications
are dealt with promptly, and applicant numbers can be regularly reviewed”.
An example for a Departmental Secretary / Executive Assistant / Secretarial Assistant
might be:-
“Maintain and monitor the accounts of the Department”.
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3. An example for a Secretary / Executive Assistant / Computer Officer might be:-
“To maintain and develop the Department's website using the appropriate software,
to meet ongoing needs”.
An example for a Library Assistant might be:-
“Dealing with customer enquiries including locating pre-ordered books, receiving
overdue loan fines, and helping customers to use the photocopier”.
An example for a Senior Secretary might be:-
“Supervising the work of clerical staff - assisting, motivating, monitoring, and
training temporary staff employed at two points in the year, annually”.
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4. Section 3: Relationships and Contacts
Examples for Internal Contacts
An example for an Undergraduate / Postgraduate Co-ordinator might be:-
“Communicating to academic and support staff across the Faculty on issues such
as details of University policies (eg the admissions policy)”.
An example for a Departmental Secretary might be:-
“Dealing with student queries on a regular basis which may require basic
courtesy, sensitivity and good listening skills”.
An example for a Library Assistant might be:-
“Dealing with a range of customers (such as students and staff) in a helpful and
courteous manner, providing clear and correct information, and knowing when to
pass an enquiry on”.
An example for an Executive Assistant / Secretary might be:-
“Organising meetings of busy academic staff, requiring elements of persuasion
and negotiation”.
An example for a Senior Administrator might be:-
“To provide advice to the university’s senior managers in order to inform policy
development”.
An example for a Computer Officer might be:-
“Training and assisting support staff throughout the University with deployment
and support of PC systems, servers and software”.
An example for an Executive Assistant / Secretary might be:-
“Providing secretarial support to academic staff, requiring courtesy, tact and
sometimes assertiveness”.
Examples for External Contacts
An example for an Admissions Secretary / Admissions assistant / Secretary might
be:-
“Dealing with prospective students, teachers and parents on admissions
enquiries. This may entail explaining policies and procedures, which will be
unfamiliar to those outside the organisation. Persuasive skills are sometimes
required to help, say, an unsuccessful candidate to accept the outcome”.
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5. An example for a Departmental Secretary might be:-
“Organising visiting lecturers for the Department requiring negotiation and
considerable diplomacy to arrange the timetable”.
An example for a Departmental Secretary might be:-
“Answering calls from the media, sometimes requiring tact and confidentiality on
aspects of the Department’s work”.
An example for a Senior Administrator might be:-
“Contact and participation with professional bodies operating within higher
education, to represent the interests of the University and to ensure that the
University is aware of developments elsewhere in HE”.
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6. Section 4: Qualifications, Skills, Knowledge and Experience
An example for an Executive Assistant / Secretary might be:-
“The post requires a good operating knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, the
Internet and Email, with experience of working in a busy office environment and
an ability to plan and prioritise one's own work”.
An example for an Executive Assistant / Senior Secretary might be:-
“Ability to draft letters and reports on behalf of the management team, to a high
standard of English”.
An example for an Executive Assistant / Senior Secretary might be:-
“Ability to design and develop databases using Microsoft Access and to create
webpages using Dreamweaver”.
An example for a Secretary might be:-
“Accurate audio and copy typing essential”.
An example for an Executive Assistant / Secretary might be:-
“Must be able to deal with a range of ongoing tasks at the same time, and to be
able to cope under pressure”.
An example for an Executive Assistant / Secretary might be:-
“Must be able to work with a minimum of supervision, and to make administrative
decisions based on a broad understanding of relevant policies or operational
requirements”.
An example for a Clerical Assistant might be:-
“Education to GCSE level in Maths and English (Grades A – C), plus basic
training in word-processing and spreadsheets, and in book-keeping”.
An example for an Administrator who gives professional advice might be:-
“A degree and a relevant professional qualification”.
An example for an Accountant might be:-
“An accountancy qualification such as ACCA or CIMA, and (x) years post-
qualification experience”.
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7. Section 4: Work Examples
Examples for a Senior Secretarial role may be:-
“Responsible for monitoring the departmental budget. I review the department’s
finance spreadsheet on a monthly basis and attempt to reconcile it with the
figures produced by the Finance Office. Where there are discrepancies I follow
them up until I am satisfied that everything is accounted for. I then check
expenditure against budget for each budget head. It is my responsibility to
decide whether a particular budget is showing cause for concern. If it is, I will
draw this to the attention of the budget holder to see if there are any special
circumstances to account for the figures. If there is still concern I will report to
the Head of Department, who has overall responsibility for delivering the budget.
I am also the budget holder for the Department’s stationery and general
administration budgets with authority to spend against budgets, and I sign off
invoices against all Departmental codes up to a limit of £500.”
“An essential feature of the job is that it is not possible to allocate discrete times
to particular tasks so that multi-tasking becomes an required skill. During a
typical two-day period in November I may have to find time to concentrate on all
of the following: getting together all the papers for the Annual Programme
Review and writing up the Department Meeting minutes that form the core of the
APR report, supervising the invitations to undergraduate interviews, assembling
marks and reports for the postgraduate exam board, getting together with the
Exams Officer to draft a marking policy document, dealing with postgraduate
admissions enquiries, arranging dates for Staff Reviews, paying bills, acting as
PA to the Head of Department, whilst meeting innumerable requests for advice
and information from members of the Department staff, other University offices,
students and members of the public, which come in a steady stream of e-mails,
telephone calls and knocks on the door. Some of these tasks require a high
degree of concentration and attention to detail. Most requests present
themselves as urgent. I have to be able to switch rapidly between a wide range
of processes and knowledge systems”.
An example for an Administration Assistant may be:-
“Data Integrity Checks must be carried out regularly to ensure that the database is
accurate. Where the checks show problems, these must be investigated (contacting
departments if necessary) and corrected. The postholder is also expected to deal initially
with any problems brought to the Office by students. Problems might or might not need
referral to the Faculty Administrator or Graduate Dean. They can include personal issues
or financial ones such as an inability to pay fees or complaints”.
An example for a Project Assistant may be:-
“Undertake all administrative tasks associated with the project, centre or service
workshops and conferences - these events can have anything from 8 to 150
delegates who come, typically, from UK higher education institutions. Activities
include: processing delegate bookings and fees, booking facilities and ordering
food, oversee printing, collation and distribution of materials, these can range
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8. from 4-page booklets to ring-bound 50-page full-colour glossy packs with
software CDs. General guidelines are given to Project Assistants by Project
Managers but day-to-day responsibility is delegated to the role holder”.
An example for a Co-ordination Role may be:-
“To satisfy the requirements of all staff and research postgraduates in the
University, the jobholder must ensure that they use their product knowledge and
planning skills to compile a suitable and timely programme. To achieve this,
previous events are analysed and evaluated, current course demand is checked
and budgets are allocated to each training category. The jobholder contacts
internal and external tutors to establish availability and negotiates fees before
confirming any agreements by issuing contracts. It is sometimes necessary to
persuade staff that may not normally be involved in training to participate in
courses, eg as a speaker, this could be to cover absence or provide a new
course topic.”
An example for a Finance Role may be:-
“Approval of Staff Appointment Request- the role holder Identifies key data from
the request i.e. Grade, Point, Start Date, Increment Date, Duration. They then
Identify the type of funding sponsor and whether nationally agreed pay awards
and increments will be met and if funds are available to support the post. The
role holder will either use the on-line costing system to calculate the cost of the
salary over the period or calculate manually using salary tables and compare the
projected cost with the projected funding. If the projected cost is lower than
projected funding approval can be given, if the projected cost is higher than
projected funding the role holder contacts Department to consider and agree on
a way forward e.g. reducing term of contract, reallocating from another budget
heading (allocating money from the Consumables budget to Salaries) or funding
from an alternative source”.
An example for a Press/ PR Role may be:-
“Researching, writing and issuing press releases - Using network of contacts and
proactive investigation to find interesting stories within the University; talking to
the academics involved to gain information about their work, editing and rewriting
this information in a lively, accessible manner suitable for a press release; getting
approval for the release from the academic, any funding body and the academic
journal where the academic’s paper will be published; researching and creating a
list of media contacts and emailing out the release to them, following up with calls
to individual journalists to encourage them to run the story and posting the
release on key news distribution websites; responding to calls from journalists
requesting more information and interviews”.
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