Guide to Writing a Clerical Resume

A clerk is mainly considered as a worker who is accountable for performing several activities. Accounting, accounts payable, data entry and official duties are some of the crucial roles played by a clerk in his/her professional career. All these duties require proficiency in computer, good typing as well as interpersonal skills.

These skills and abilities must be clearly reflected when writing a clerical resume. Following are some more tips while writing an effective clerical resume:

·        Begin your resume which conveys your skills and the position you’ve applied for with a good and impressive objective.

·        After that you could state your key strengths and talents which prove to be valuable when working as a clerk. Also mention your competencies which match to the requirements of the applied job position.

·        After that, with short clarification about your role and responsibilities in your earlier jobs, write about your professional history. In order to be easily readable for the potential employer, write all your key responsibilities in bullet points.

·        It’s also vital that you list down your achievements in terms of certification received, special projects handled by you, awards or honor received as you can add more credibility to your resume as well as your skills by adding all this information.

·        Always use a separate section to list down your relevant and special skills. In this section, you can write down your skills such as your capability to collect and analyze data, use computer, assess decision making procedures, managing operations, accounting skills and technical skills in delivering details of communication.

·        After finishing this, you can create a section for your educational qualifications along with the year of passing, name of the university and percentage.

Finally, in order to ensure a proper flow of content and information, you must proofread your clerical resume twice.    

Earn Money with Administrative Clerical Jobs

 The definitions of the terms administrative and clerical are intersecting, since clerical jobs generally refer to administrating the daily tasks that come up in an office environment. Clerical jobs are the lowest level jobs in office administration and office work support and they are generally occupied by entry-level employees or employees without superior studies (with college degree in no matter what field). However, there are some certification programs that help potential candidates in developing clerical skills, such as the Associate of Applied Science in Administrative Assistance.

The basic work that an administrative cleric has to do includes answering, making and redirecting phone calls, managing correspondence, typing, copying and keeping records, sorting and selecting paperwork and business documents, making appointments and daily schedules and managing public relations at a minimum level. These are basic secretarial tasks that need to be done in any office. More demanding administrative clerical jobs require IT expertise for managing data and information or internet networking.

This job is easy to find in any company, organization or institution at any time. It is a basic and indispensable work needed in offices of businesspersons or other type of managers and institutions. The profile of the company rarely affects the required abilities, skills and knowledge for a vacant job, but understanding the business in which they are involved improves the administrative clerks’ opportunities of promotion and proficiency.

Administrative clerical jobs are generally well-paid for the type of work demanded and the vacancies are most of the time not a problem, since there is an office in need of an administrator in almost all public or commercial buildings.

Thus, an individual could begin his/her career with administrative clerical jobs which could provide handsome salaries with great exposure in the business aspects. You can easily apply for any administrative jobs which are growing in high numbers once you complete your graduation.

Traditional Clerical Work

The term clerical work is often attached to the lowest of administrative support positions. However, clerks perform important work in every sector of the economy. Several entry level administrative and secretarial positions require clerical work. This frequently includes distributing mail and answering phone calls. Other duties traditionally related with clerking include: typing, copying and collating, sorting and filing, record keeping, scheduling of appointments, minor bookkeeping, data entry and low level public relations.

The above duties have been subject to improvement with developments in technology. At present, clerical work is assumed to include the operation of sophisticated computer systems, copiers, printers and other peripherals. Clerks must be well-known with the software suitable to their jobs. In some cases, they might need to be capable of maintaining the computer hardware.   

Clerks who work in business have several roles. In large organizations, there might be several clerks doing the same job. For example, 25 clerks could work in an organization and in a small business; one person could be used for 2 or more positions. Other clerical jobs in business include: general office work, file, mail, payroll, personnel, procurement and statistical clerk.

Clerical work is an important part at all levels of a government job. These jobs could correspond closely to those in business. Other well known government clerical positions include municipal clerks, court clerks, library and license clerks.

People who perform clerical work in an office generally pursue either an administrative assistant certificate program or an associate of applied science in administrative assistance. These programs develop clerical skills and increase an individual’s chance of getting employment.

Skills required to grab a Clerical Job

You can’t depend on your degree alone to automatically open doors for jobs after you graduate. It would certainly unlock doors, i.e. it would make you entitled to apply for jobs that specify “must be a graduate” and the subject or class of your degree might also be significant to some employers. However good your class of degree and relevant your subject to the position that you are applying for are, it’s likely that you would be competing for the clerical job with a number of other graduates who are equally qualified.

For those with correct motivation, clerical jobs could be pathways to career success. The technical skills that you need to learn and excel are reasonably simple, and if you get placed in the right office, it could open doors for your future success. Following are some of the most general technical skills you’d need for most clerical jobs. 

Nowadays, it’s impossible to work in an office if you don’t have necessary computer knowledge. At the very minimum, you must be able to turn on a computer and use its operating system as it’s virtually needed by every clerical job which you could come across. You need to possess ground knowledge of Microsoft Word, the most popular word processing program in the market. Many clerical jobs require you to be acquainted with creating spreadsheets, which emulate paper worksheets and have several statistical functions built in.

Thus, the above mentioned basic clerical skills are required if you want to stand any chance of getting a clerical job in an organization.