Administrative Assistants provide administrative support within a corporate or an office environment. Administrative Assistants will carry out typical office based tasks such as; email management, written business correspondence, invoicing and purchase orders, maintenance of office equipment and many more typical office admin functions. One of the biggest differences between Executive Assistants and Administrative Assistants, is that EAs are far more senior and often provide business support rather than only administrative support.

Additionally, many Administrative Assistants have the requirement to provide direct support to a manager this career type is often refer to also as a PA. This will mean that they will organise travel, manage expenses, manage emails and also provide diary management.

What is an Executive Assistant?

Executive Assistants will provide a mixture of administrative and business support to a member of senior management. Senior Executive Assistants will support C-suite members, such as a CFOs or CEOs.

Anyone who is looking to work with Board of Directors or senior management will need far more business knowledge. Firstly, Executive Assistants must have excellent administrative skills and perform to a very high-level any task that would be required of a lower level Administrative Assistant. The more complex part of the Executive Assistant job is that they will also need to build a greater sense of business and commercial awareness of  the higher level of a company. This means that they will need to understand high level business terms, the strategy of the business and corporate objectives in order to synchronize with their executive manager.

The Difference between Executive Assistants and Administrative Assistants

Additionally there will be more expectation that they should be able to get engaged with business activities that are required at this level. This means that it is very common for Executive Assistants to require skills in organising events, project management, finance, developing business cases and many of our higher level financial areas. The provision of assistance to support board members which will mean that they may be involved in attending and organising board meetings.

If you were interested in finding out more about how to become over an Administrative Assistant or Executive Assistant, please take a look at the various courses that we offer. All of our courses and Diplomas are accredited by the IEAA, which will enable you to gain a professional qualification. If you are new to the area most people will start out as PAs or Administrative Assistants before progressing to Executive Assistants.