interview questions and answers for secretary positions

Sample secretarial interview questions frequently asked by interviewers. The interview answer guidelines will help you prepare your best answers to land the secretary job you want.

Use the answer guidelines to develop your own excellent interview answers and get the secretarial position you want.

These questions will help you prepare for the interview.

Common interview questions

• Tell me about yourself?
• Why did you leave your last job?
• What are your career goals for Secretary?
• What is your greatest weakness?
• What kind of salary are you looking for Secretary?
• What are key tasks for Secretary?
• What are techniques/methods list that you used in your work as Secretary? Please explain how to you use them?
• Please tell me applications/software that you used for your work as Secretary?
• How do you apply ISO 9001 for your secretary job?
• What are most common mistakes for secretary job and how to solve them?
• What are top 3 skills for Secretary?

Language skills for Secretary

• 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 for Secretary

• 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?
• Can you please edit this letter within 5 minutes?
• What mistakes do you normally make in 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 for Secretary

• How do you setup your workspace?
• Do you prefer everything to be stored in one place or do you have a system for remembering where stuff is?
• How do you make sure that colleagues can find information or files if you are not around?
• 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.

Soft skills and abilities for Secretary

• Tell me about the most difficult person you have ever dealt with over the phone and what did you do?
• Tell me about the most difficult person you have dealt with face to face and what did you do?
• Tell me about the last time you had information that you could not tell anyone else about?
• Tell me about the last time that you had to prioritize jobs because you had so many things going at once?
• Are you able to multitask? Are you capable of handling multiple inquiries: staff, front door, students, phone?
• How do you handle stressful situations?
• Do you consider yourself a brisk worker or one who is slower paced yet persistent and consistent?
• Give an example of a major problem you faced at work and how you solved it.
• Are you capable of handling multiple inquiries; staff, front door, customers, phone?

IT interview questions for Secretary

• Do you know how to use MS Excel?
• Can you create a calendar of projects for each manager in Excel?
• What have you done on Excel? What is most complicated thing you have done on Excel?
• What kinds of word documents have you done?
• What office equipment are you able to use? What software are you comfortable using?
• What computer skills do you possess? What programs are you proficient in using? WORD? EXCEL? ACCESS? WORKS? OMNI FORM/FILLER?
• Can you take dictation in shorthand? If not, how do you take notes that a supervisor wants converted to letter, form, etc.?
• Can you use macros?
• What is your typing speed?
• What software are you comfortable using?

Meeting management for Secretary

• 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?

Handling works for Secretary

• 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.
• Provide examples of what you see as tight deadlines.
• What was the most recent job overload situation with a tight deadline and how did you deal with it?

Work priority scheduling for Secretary

• 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?

Records management for Secretary

• 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?

Good luck in finding the perfect fit!

These are just some of the secretarial interview questions. You may also refer to Competency Based Questions Examples article for further information.