How to become a Secretary
Also called: Personal assistant, Private secretary, Stenographic secretary, Private secretary
Secretary performs a variety of administrative tasks to help keep an organisation running smoothly. He/she answers telephone calls, drafts and sends e-mails, maintains diaries, arranges appointments, takes messages, files documents, organises and services meetings, and manages databases.
Main tasks
- Checking, formatting and transcribing correspondence, minutes and reports from dictation, electronic documents or written drafts to conform to office standards, using typewriter, personal computer or other word processing equipment
- Using various computer software packages including spreadsheets to provide administrative support
- Dealing with incoming or outgoing mail
- Scanning, recording and distributing mail, correspondence and documents
- Screening requests for meetings or appointments and helping to organise meetings
- Screening and recording leave and other staff-members’ entitlements
- Organising and supervising filing systems
- Dealing with routine correspondence on their own initiative
Pay · Outlook · AI and this job
- Generative AI could change many tasks in this job, which usually reshapes the work more than it replaces it, by the ILO's global estimate.
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Questions people ask
Will AI change the work of a Secretary?
Generative AI could change many tasks in this job, which usually reshapes the work more than it replaces it, by the ILO's global estimate.
Sources
- International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
Updated 4 October 2026