The skills, tools and soft skills administrative assistant job descriptions keep asking for, grouped and ranked, with before/after bullets to show you how to use them.
Administrative assistant postings in the US and Canada read like a checklist: calendar management, data entry, filing, answering phones, ordering supplies, and a named software suite, usually Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Applicant tracking systems match those words literally, so "helped the office run smoothly" says nothing to the software, while "managed calendars for a team of 12 in Outlook" matches several filters at once. The lists below cover the vocabulary that keeps coming back in administrative assistant, office assistant and receptionist-administrator postings, and show how to turn routine tasks into bullets that prove reliability.
Most mid-size and large employers in the US and Canada receive applications through an applicant tracking system such as Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS or Taleo. The system parses your resume into fields (titles, dates, skills) and lets recruiters search and rank candidates by the terms in the job description. Some systems only match exact words; others recognize close variants. Either way, the safest approach is to use the same wording as the posting for every skill you genuinely have — inside a bullet that explains what you did with it.
Methods, domain knowledge and techniques that describe what you can do as a administrative assistant.
These are the daily tasks named in nearly every posting. Say for whom you did them (one manager, a department, a whole office) and the volume involved.
Front-facing duties matter for roles that combine reception and administration. Mention the channels you handled: phone, email, walk-ins.
Many admin roles touch light finance and HR tasks. Include them when you did them; they widen the postings you match.
Named software and platforms. Spell them exactly as the posting does — "Microsoft 365", not a generic description.
Name the suite the posting names. "Excel" with a function (pivot tables, VLOOKUP) is stronger than "computer skills".
Postings name them, but a single word proves little: pair each one with an action in a bullet.
Soft skills are hard to prove with a single word. Show each one through an action: who you worked with, what you explained, what you resolved. An ATS may still match the phrase, and the recruiter gets evidence instead of a claim.
Certifications are optional for administrative assistants. The Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification from Microsoft is a recognized proof of Excel, Word or Outlook skills, and the Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) from the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) is known in both countries. A typing speed (for example "typing 60 WPM") is not a certification but some postings ask for it; list it only if you have measured it.
Duties and software are the same on both sides of the border. Canadian postings for federal government offices, Quebec, Ottawa or New Brunswick often require English and French, sometimes with a level (for example "bilingual BBB"); only claim the level you have. US postings for public-sector or school offices sometimes mention a typing test or civil-service exam. In both countries, an administrative resume stays at one page unless you have long, relevant experience.
In both countries, leave out your photo, date of birth and marital status, keep the resume to one or two pages, and list experience in reverse chronological order.
Vague lines hide your keywords. Name the skill, the tool and what it was for. Keywords are highlighted in each rewrite.
Booked meetings for my team.
Handled calendar management and meeting scheduling for a 12-person sales team in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams, including client calls across three time zones.
Answered the phone and the front door.
Ran reception on a multi-line phone system, greeted visitors and routed customer inquiries to the right department.
Did some paperwork for accounting.
Processed expense reports and purchase orders and kept supplier records in Microsoft Excel, reconciling monthly office spend with accounting.
Hard-working assistant who is good with people and computers.
Administrative Assistant with experience in calendar management, reception and document preparation, organized and discreet, fluent in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
These are examples to adapt, not real employer results: change the tools, scope and outcome to what you actually did. To see the keywords inside complete resumes, look at our administrative assistant resume examples (entry level, mid level and senior). Browse all administrative, HR and legal resume examples too.
Four places carry keywords. Use each for what it does best.
Two or three lines that repeat the job title from the posting and the three or four skills it stresses most. The first text the parser and the recruiter read.
They carry the most weight because they show the keyword in use. Start with an action verb, name the tool or skill, say what it was for.
A short list grouped by type, in the posting's exact spelling. No stars or percentage bars: parsers cannot read them.
Keep your real job titles and use standard section names (Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications) so keywords land in the right field.
Keyword lists are a starting point. The job you are applying to is the real test.
Read the posting once for meaning, then a second time with a highlighter: mark every tool, method, certification and responsibility it names, and note which ones appear under "required" versus "nice to have". Compare that list with your resume. For each required term you genuinely have, make sure it appears at least once in a bullet; for each one you lack, do not add it — prepare to address it in the interview instead.
The free ATS resume checker does this comparison for you: paste the job description and your resume and it lists the matched and missing keywords. If you want a version of your resume rewritten for that posting, the AutoApplyMax AI resume builder can generate a tailored resume from your own experience (the free plan includes 1 AI credit per month) — it reorders and rephrases what is already true rather than inventing experience. Still looking for openings? Browse administrative assistant-related jobs.
Short answers to the questions people ask before tailoring their resume.
The most important keywords are the ones in the job description you are applying to. This page groups the terms that administrative assistant postings in the US and Canada use again and again — for example calendar management, meeting scheduling, office management, data entry — but each employer weights them differently. Copy the required skills from the posting, then check which of them you can honestly show.
Keep your real job title, and use the posting's title in your summary when your duties match it. ATS search often runs on the title, so a summary that names it helps.
Use scope and reliability: how many people you supported, how many meetings or invoices you handled, a process you made faster, a filing system you reorganized.
Only if the posting asks for it and you have a recent measured result. Otherwise it takes space that a concrete bullet would use better.
List both if you use both. The skills transfer, but the ATS matches names, so make sure the suite the posting names appears in your skills section.
No. Repeating a word many times, or hiding keywords in white text, does not help with modern ATS ranking and is obvious to the recruiter who reads the resume next. Each keyword should appear where you actually used the skill.
Many of these skills transfer. Compare lists if you are switching roles.