Question Bank: Administrative and Office

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Below, you will find questions divided into sub-categories for Administrative and Office.

Assistant Skills

1. Concerning office policies and procedures, have you ever been responsible for mentoring others?
2. Describe something you worked on that involved a lot of detail, and how you handled it.
3. Describe the company proprietary/specific software base application that you use for monitoring work tasks?
4. Describe the different types of business communications you were responsible for.
5. Describe the kinds of deadlines you have had to meet in previous positions.
6. Describe your computer experience including applications used (MS Word, Excel, etc.), computer environments (Windows, Macintosh, etc.), word processing, database, and spreadsheet skills.
7. Describe your experience working on a team, and what contributions you made to improve teamwork.
8. Do you show initiative in your job? Do you go the extra mile or do you just do the task that you are given?
9. Give me an example of how you had to multitask to meet your deadlines.
10. How are memos and correspondence prepared in your current position? What types of documents do you prepare?
11. How are memos and correspondence prepared in your current position? Who proofs the documents? What types of documents do you prepare?
12. How do you go about getting the relevant information necessary to understand a problem in order to be able to decide on a possible solution?
13. How do you handle stress and pressure?
14. How do you make sure you have clearly and accurately understood an inquiry or request made of you?
15. How would you describe your ideal job?
16. If a deadline could not be met, what did you do?
17. If I were to ask your supervisor about your administrative strengths, what would they say?
18. Please describe a client relationship that you have built that was especially effective. What steps did you take to establish this relationship? What do you think made it so successful?
19. Please describe your previous duties as an administrative assistant in a business office.
20. Please give us an example of a situation where there were competing priorities. What actions did you take and what were the results?
21. Please give us an example of a time when you explained policies and/or procedures to others.
22. Tell me about a meeting you recently arranged. How did you coordinate and schedule it?
23. Tell me about a situation where you had to re-prioritize quickly to meet changing demands.
24. Tell us about a situation when you were working with a very demanding customer. How did you handle the situation? And what was the result?
25. What different systems have you used to store information and documents?
26. What do you consider your administrative strengths?
27. What do you do to organize your workday?
28. What messaging system and calendar programs did you use?
29. What record-keeping were you responsible for?
30. What sort of data were you responsible for processing?
31. What types of faxing applications, copier, printer, and scanner have you most recently used?
32. What would he/she say about areas that could be improved?

Experience

1. How do you train junior administrative staff?
2. Please tell me your administrative department structure and the main duties of each administrative position in your department?
3. What motivates you to do a good job?

Filing & Records Management

1. Describe the components of an effective records management program.
2. Describe the risks of having an ineffective records management program.
3. Describe your filing system. (Do they mention both cabinet filing and computer filing?) How would you "file" computer files?
4. Did you use a commercial records-storage vendor? If so, which one?
5. Give me a situation where you faced a tight deadline. What was the situation? How did you handle it and what was the result.
6. Have you done filing before and how did you arrange the files? Did you set up the filing system?
7. How do you work with confidential information?
8. How would you organize a file of general correspondence documents?
9. Please describe when you were responsible for the transfer of boxes to storage?
10. Tell us about the last job you did that involved record-keeping or bookkeeping?
11. Tell us about your experience in managing off-site records storage?
12. The files for an office consist of general correspondence, purchase orders, and employee files. How would you organize these files?
13. What actions can you take to facilitate the retrieval of records?
14. What are the benefits of records management?
15. What are the critical service requirements in using a contract facility for off-site records storage?
16. What are the critical service requirements that you used for the use of a contract for the storage of records?
17. What are the different means by which documents may be filed?
18. What are the different ways to organize a filing system?
19. What are the legal implications associated with a records management program?
20. What are the reasons for storing records off-site at a records warehouse?
21. What experience have you had with establishing file systems?
22. What have you learned from your past jobs that related to administrative managers?
23. What is your biggest failure and what did you learn from it?
24. What is your experience with the creation of the file system?
25. What kind of box do you use for records storage? Why did you choose that particular sort of box?
26. What steps are involved in determining the retention period for records?
27. What steps do you use in determining the retention period of records involved?
28. What types of records would be considered vital records for an organization?

Meeting Management

1. Describe something you worked on that involved a lot of detail, and how you handled it.
2. Describe your experience working on a team, and what contributions you made to improve teamwork.
3. How do you coordinate and schedule a meeting?
4. If I asked you to schedule a meeting and ensure that each one element of the meeting are cared for, what can you be doing?
5. Please tell me the forms that you'll require to work within a meeting?
6. What are the steps to organize a meeting?
7. What forms would you use to make a meeting more efficient?
8. What is your experience with meeting planning and calendar maintenance?
9. What is your knowledge about the meeting, planning, and work schedule maintenance?
10. What steps do you use to arrange a conference?

Payroll

1. What work have you done that involved working with sensitive or confidential issues?

Position Knowledge

1. How has your experience prepared you for this position?
2. If you were hiring for this position, what qualities would you look for?
3. In what ways do you think you can contribute to our organization?
4. What advice would you give to someone interested in developing skills for a future administrative position?
5. What are your long-range and short-range career goals and objectives, and how are you preparing to achieve them?
6. What do you find most surprising/interesting about the position? Why?
7. What is your academic background? How did you arrive at the position you’re in today? Where
8. might such a position lead you in the future?"
9. What is your current position and how long have you been in it? What are your responsibilities?
10. Why did you choose your career in administration?
11. Why did you decide to seek a position with this organization and what do you know about us?

Secretarial Skills

1. A person comes into reception with a complaint to make and is attempting to do so very loudly in front of other visitors. What do you do?
2. Are you able to multitask? Do you have experience handling multiple inquiries at the same time?
3. Are you able to speak and/or read in any other languages? If so, what languages and what is your level of proficiency?
4. As a secretary, highlight your strengths and your weaknesses.
5. Describe a situation where you’ve had to work with a colleague/supplier who was difficult, how did you handle it?
6. Describe how you handled your manager's work schedule?
7. Do you consider yourself a brisk worker or one who is slower paced yet persistent and consistent?
8. Do you have experience in proofreading? If so, what are the steps to proofread a document?
9. Give an example of a major problem you faced at work and how you solved it.
10. Give an example of where you’ve highlighted a problem, investigated, and consequently resolved it.
11. How do you handle stressful situations?
12. How do you plan work priorities? Do you use a specific system and if so, explain?
13. How do you work with confidential information?
14. How have you gone about prioritizing your work?
15. One of your managers is not picking up the phone, but a client needs to speak to them urgently. What do you do?
16. On what do you base your decision on the priority level of the work?
17. Please describe for us the types of business communication you have dealt with in your past positions.
18. Please explain how you would edit a letter that you have to type. What types of changes or adjustments would you make?
19. Provide an example of a strict deadline you had to deal with recently and explain how you kept the deadline.
20. Provide an example of where you had to organize a schedule, people or workspace and elaborate on how you went about doing it.
21. Tell me about a time when you really had to pay attention to what someone else was saying to understand their message and react to it accordingly.
22. Tell me about a time when you’ve relied on another person to help you with a work-related task or problem.
23. Tell us about the last time that you had to prioritize tasks, what steps did you take and what were the results?
24. What are you trying to accomplish when answering the phone?
25. What did you like best about your last secretary job and what did you enjoy least?
26. What experience do you have with planning meetings?
27. What kind of inquiries did you have to respond to?
28. What made you apply for this secretary job?
29. What qualities do you consider the most important in a Secretarial or Administrative Professional job?
30. What qualities do you consider to be the most important for a secretarial position?
31. What software packages are you comfortable with?
32. What sort of correspondence were you responsible for generating?
33. What sort of documents have you produced on Excel? What is the most complicated thing you have done in Excel?
34. What sort of word documents have you been responsible for typing?
35. What was your least favorite part in your present or last job?
36. When was the last time that you had to take on extra work at short notice?
37. 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?