What is the Career Path When You Train as a Secretary?

If you have no previous experience as a secretary and want to pursue a career in the profession, then the first thing you want to consider is training.  By taking Secretary Training in London or wherever you live, you can gain the skills and knowledge to land the role.  But once you have been a secretary for a while, what kind of career path can you follow?

Secretary responsibilities

Before we start looking at potential career paths and where you can go with experience behind you, it is a good idea to have a clear picture of the type of responsibilities you will have as a secretary.

Each job will have different responsibilities and requirements and good secretary training will cover all of the most common ones.  If a business requires something else, such as the ability to use a bespoke computer system, then they will usually offer training on this in-house.

General secretarial duties can include:

• Audio and copy typing, using word processing software such as Microsoft Word
• Creating letters and other documents
• Handling telephone and email enquiries and forwarding people to the right department
• Document management including photocopying and filing
• Diary and appointment scheduling and reminders
• Taking notes at meetings and creating documents from these
• Organising meetings including booking facilities
• Organising travel and accommodation arrangements for staff

What skills are needed

When you take a professional secretary training course, there will be a focus on the kind of skills that are commonly required in these roles.  This means you will finish the training with the basic skills needed and these can be enhanced over time.

Strong organisation skills and the ability to plan your work around deadlines is very important.  There may be pressure in the job, and you will need to work under it, complete the tasks assigned to you and ensure things are done on time.  This means accepting and acting on instructions, verbal and written.

Being a secretary means you are working as part of a team so good teamwork skills are important.  You need to have a pleasant and confident manner, tact and discretion and a good respect for confidentiality.  Oral and written communication skills are important.

What to expect working as a secretary

The job of the secretary tends to be mostly office-based although there may be some need to travel for events, conferences or meetings.  While the majority of secretarial roles are held by women, there is no reason why men can’t go into the role if they feel it suits their abilities.  The role is very much one of support, assisting colleagues and acting as the first contact for other businesses.

Administration career paths

One of the great things about training as a secretary is that there are also a large number of career paths open to you to develop yourself and advance your career.  Secretaries fall under the group of occupations termed as administration and there are many paths to follow within the profession as you gain experience and skills.

Working as a PA

One of the most logical career paths for a secretary is to move into being a PA or Personal Assistant.  There is some overlap in the role, but the primary difference is a PA will work with one person or one team, while a secretary may work more generally with everyone in the company.  Again, this depends on the company and its structure.

A PA will often be the first point of contact for the manager or team they work for.  Their role will be to keep the person organised, handle communications and arrange meetings and travel.  It will also involve liaising with other departments, companies and sometimes customers.

Working as an EA

While some companies use PA and EA or Executive Assistant interchangeably, for the majority these are very different roles.  The EA is a senior role to a PA and will involve a lot more responsibility.  While there may be some tasks that are similar to a PA such as diary organisation, an EA will be more of a right-hand person for their manager.

They will often be involved with project management, decision making and take part in meetings, rather than simply record them.

Other career paths

As well as progression into PA or EA roles, there are many other routes you can take to advance your career when you start as a secretary.  Office management is a natural path to take, advancing the skills learned as a secretary to run the whole office.

You can also move into related professions such as sales or marketing where your organisation and communication skills are crucial.  You may want to train further to become a specific type of secretary such as a chartered secretary or a legal secretary. These will each have their own future career path to consider.