Administrative position interview questions and sample answers

The first step towards getting that position as an administrative assistant is getting through the interview. In this article I outline what to expect in your interview,

I list some of the most common questions and I provide great tips on what to include in your answers.

List of Administrative interview questions

• Tell me about yourself?
• What is your greatest weakness?
• What experience do you have in Administrative field?
• What have you done to improve your Administrative knowledge in the last year?
• What have you learned from mistakes on the Administrative job?
• Why do you think you are suitable for this position?
• How do you handle pressure at work?
• What should be the qualities of an admin assistant?
• Are you comfortable using a phone system?
• What computer skills do you have and what programs are you comfortable using?
• Tell me about your teamwork skills for administrative field?
• Tell me about your information management skills for administrative field?
• Tell me about your problem solving skills for administrative field?
• Tell me about your planning and organizing skills for administrative field?
• Tell me about your communication skills for administrative field?
• Tell me about your general administrative experience?
• What are the important duties and responsibilities of an administrative assistant?

General questions

• What are methods that are used to manage Administrative?
• How to maintain Administrative activities?
• What are common risks for Administrative? And how to face?
• Describe steps to manage Administrative?
• How to measure performance of Administrative activities?
• What are monitoring methods for Administrative activities?
• Describe ISO 9001 for Administrative?
• What made you choose to apply to Administrative…position?
• What do you know about the Administrative…position?
• What are key tasks for Administrative…position?
• What are top 3 knowledge/top 3 skills for Administrative…position?
• What are KRAs/output of Administrative field/positions?
• How to measure/appraise Administrative field/positions?
• Describe two or three major trends in your Administrative field?
• Did you choose your job for this Administrative field?
• What tertiary qualifications have you attained that related to Administrative…position?
• What is the most recent skill you have learned that related to Administrative…position?

Language skills

• What were your grades in Math? English? Spelling?
• How are your proof reading skills? Describe how you proof read.
• Do you speak any other languages?

Written communication skills

• Please provide a few examples of written communication (just mention) for example? writing to embassies or central banks.
• Please elaborate on all the types of business communication you have dealt with.
• What program or application do you use for your written communication?
• Please explain how you would edit a letter that you have to type up. Will you only correct the spelling mistakes or do you make changes to the sentences and format of the letter as well?

Planning skills

• Do you prefer everything to be stored in one place or do you have a system for remembering where stuff is?
• Provide an example of where you had to organize a schedule, people or work space and elaborate on how you went about doing it.
• What do you perceive as the worst part in your present/last job?
• We have problems with___________ Please provide us with a solution to it.

Handling works

• Provide an example of a conflict situation where you had to select between priorities and how did you reach a compromise?
• How do you handle a too large workload?
• Provide an example of where you had to deal with an angry colleague about work and explain how you resolved the issue.
• Provide an example of a strict deadline you had to deal with recently and explain how you kept the deadline.

Work priority scheduling

• How do you plan work priorities? Do you use a specific system and if so, explain?
• When you have three or more important projects scheduled for the same day, do you have a system in place to decide which one needs to be finished first?
• On what do you base your decision for the priority level of the work?

Information management

• What different systems have you used to store information and documents?
• What record keeping were you responsible for?
• What sort of data were you responsible for processing?

Meeting management interview questions

• What is your experience with meeting planning and calendar maintenance?
• How do you coordinate and schedule a meeting?
• If I asked you to schedule a meeting and insure that all aspects of the meeting are taken care of, what will you do?
• What is your experience with meeting planning and calendar maintenance?
• What are steps to organize a meeting?
• Please tell me a checklist of a meeting.
• Please tell me forms that you need to use in a meeting?

Filing and records management

• What are the legal implications associated with a records management program?
• What steps are involved in determining the retention period for records?
• Name the factors to consider in determing the appropriate retention period for records.
• Name the risks of having an ineffective records management program.
• What actions can you take to facilitate the retrieval of records?
• Tell us about your experience in managing off-site records storage?
• Have you managed off-site records storage or did you use a contract facility?
• What are the critical service requirements in using a contract facility for off-site records storage?
• How do you work with confidential information?
• What are the different means by which documents may be filed?
• Tell me about the last job you did that involved record-keeping or bookkeeping?
• Describe your filing system. (Do they mention both cabinet filing and computer filing?) How would you “file” computer files?

Don't be nervous, believe in yourself and your ability to be a good administrative assistant and you'll definitely get the job. Good luck!

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