Hiring employees who have the talent and drive to deliver excellence in their roles is crucial for maintaining a healthy company. When your business needs to hire administration staff, your want to hire employees who are highly reliable and skilled because these individuals handle a vast portfolio of tasks, from filing to handling customer complaints and even arranging travel for the CEO. Recruit poor job candidates, and the glue that holds your business together can fail, leaving you on the wrong side of compliance or witnessing falling motivation.

However, you can’t spend forever finding the perfect job seeker, nor can you blow your annual recruitment budget hiring the first employee of the year. To avoid recruitment woes, you need to deploy effective recruitment solutions appropriate to your business and industry. This is the focus of our administration staff hiring guide, where we discuss:

• Preparing To Recruit Administration Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page
• Writing An Administration Job Description & Job Advert
• Advertising Your Admin Department Positions: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards
• Reducing Administration Staff Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS
• Screening Job Seekers & Conducting Interviews
• Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Administration Staff

Preparing To Recruit Administration Staff: Your Employer Brand & Company Careers Page

Before you begin to advertise externally for administration staff, you should review all your existing candidate touchpoints to ensure you are promoting a positive employer brand. You will ultimately only secure the best candidates if you show that you are a highly desirable employer where quality candidates will want to work.

The initial step is to consider how you portray your company culture, company values, and your business success, along with other elements such as supporting further training and career development. In our Guide On How To Hire, we explore deeper the topics of Why Should SMEs Build An Employer Brand and What Should Be On A Company Careers Page.

Writing An Administration Job Description & Job Advert

You can only write an accurate job description and job advert once you have examined your business’s administration needs. It will make a big difference in the long run if you speak to key decision makers in the hiring process, including the position’s line manager:

Administration Job Descriptions

Writing a job description for an administration role will help your hiring manager save time and speed up the recruitment process. The best practice is to have one on file for all company positions, which can be quickly updated and used to create job postings whenever recruitment needs arise.

For Search Engine Optimisation, it is a good practice to integrate keywords and key phrases that top candidates might search for in a search engine. The job specification should have a clear message to attract the most suitable candidates. It also helps to refrain from using excessive punctuation and too much industry jargon.

When writing a job description for administration staff, consider:

1. Identifying and outlining typical company-wide requirements
2. Collating today’s minimum technical skills, qualifications, and experience
3. Reviewing what your competitors are saying when they post jobs
4. What your new hires should look like
5. How you want your brand to be perceived

Our Job Description Templates can help you get started; we appreciate writing this content can be a challenge. You can discover the most popular Administration Job Descriptions here.

Further useful resources include How To Define What People Do In Their Jobs, Preparing Job Descriptions, and Key Roles And Responsibilities In Administration.

Administration Job Adverts

Your admin job descriptions form the basis of your new job ad. There are other things to add to attract the perfect candidate with appropriate skills, so ensure your admin job ad includes:

1. An accurate job title – office administrator, executive assistant, office manager, receptionist, secretary, etc
2. An opening statement – saying why applicants will want to work for your company
3. The job’s description
4. A list of responsibilities – drafting letters, filing, data entry, booking travel arrangements, office visitor support, purchasing office supplies, etc
5. Qualifications, personality traits, working knowledge and specific skills – T Level in Management and Administration, Level 2 or 3 Business and Administration, Level 2 International Computer Driving Licence Certificate in IT User Skills, communication, organisation, etc
6. Job location – office-based or remote
7. Salary range and employee benefits – check the average salary for all admin jobs
8. Next steps – potential candidates should email xxx or apply via your careers page

We recommend that medium and small businesses use a job advert template to get down the basics and then fill in more detail on the unique aspects of your company, team, jobs, and ideal candidate.

Advertising Your Admin Department Positions: Referral Schemes, Social Media, & Job Boards

With your job ad in hand, you are ready to find your new staff. Your recruitment strategy might include posting your jobs:

Internally (Employee Referral Schemes)

A non-incentivised or incentivised employee referral scheme is extremely valuable when you want to hire an administrator. You will turn your existing staff into motivated recruiters, sharing that you are hiring a new employees across their social and professional networks and with other contacts(LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter).

Employee referral schemes often bring in promising candidates, with your team’s connections including like-minded professionals and industry contacts. To engage this business hiring strategy, share your job descriptions with your team and reward referrals from existing employees.

You can discover a few tips on employee referral schemes by reading Introducing An Employee Referral Scheme.

On Social Media

Hiring an accountant through social networking sites is effective, with free and paid advertising options. The best tips for success include ensuring your social network messaging is consistent with your employer brand and conveys a positive image. An active social media channel is helpful if you want to build a talent pool waiting for an opportunity to join your organisation. Recommended activity includes posting news, expert opinions, updates, and industry insights.

Our tips and advice for implementing a successful social media hiring strategy include:

• Marketing yourself first
• Joining industry networks and groups
• Engaging with respondents and nurturing discussions
• Using advanced search tools and Recruiter Lite on LinkedIn
• Using Twitter’s advanced search tool and direct messaging
• Building activity on your company’s Facebook page and encouraging engagement from current employees, turning them into business advocates

We explore finding qualified employees through social media further in our articles Social Media Hiring Strategies For SMEs and Job Advertising On Social Media.

On Job Boards

Whether your new hire is your first hire or your hundredth, advertising on the top job boards is essential if you want to be hiring the right candidates in an acceptable timeframe. You can post admin jobs on one job board, or many using an Applicant Tracking System. Job board resellers help you advertise your administration job across multiple general, geographical, and niche job sites using their integrated ATS software, minimising the hassle and time of developing leads and hiring a good worker.

Top Job Boards:

• Reed
• TotalJobs
• Jobsite
• Monster
• Guardian Jobs
• LinkedIn
• CV Library
• Job Today
• Fish4
• Indeed
• Gumtree

Niche Job Sites:

• AdministrationJobs.com
• Clearly Secretarial Jobs

Aggregator Job Sites:

• Indeed
• Glassdoor
• AllTheTopBananas
• Adzuna
• Neuvoo
• Zip Recruiter
• Trovit
• Jobrapido
• JobisJob

Geographical Job Sites:

• Jobs in Kent
• Fish4
• NIJobs
• S1Jobs
• WhatJobs
• Job Today

You can advertise your job on these job boards today.

Reducing Administration Staff Hiring Costs And Time: Recruitment Companies & ATS

Budgets, deadlines, and administration require careful consideration whenever you instigate the recruitment process. To get the best results, you may decide to work with a recruitment agency with a UK wide focus, a global recruitment partner, or niche recruitment agencies.

We discuss agency fees and recruiters in these two articles; How To Avoid High Recruitment Agency Fees and The Pros And Cons Of Having A Recruiter On Retainer.

Fixed Cost Recruitment

Fixed-cost recruitment allows you to hire at a flat fee governed by the level of service and functionality you desire.

The success of fixed-cost recruitment depends on the company offering the service, the methodologies they deploy, and their expertise and knowledge of your industry or sector. You will need to determine which actions you need assistance with to use flat-fee recruitment successfully.

Four steps to leveraging fixed cost recruitment to hire administration staff:

1. Place ads across leading job boards
2. Search CV databases and social media channels
3. Headhunt and shortlist new candidates
4. Receive interviewed and qualified candidates

Useful resources:

• Posting On Job Boards And Leveraging Fixed Cost Recruitment
• Free Job Advertising Review
• Should I advertise My Job On More Than One Site?

Applicant Tracking Systems

Automatic Tracking Systems can significantly reduce the costs of hiring administration staff by creating efficiency. Candidate, vacancy, and advert management fall within the software’s parameters.

Team access creates a unified place to work, helping you build a seamless hiring process and candidate experience.

Five steps to centralising recruitment with ATS:

1. Find staff online
2. Review candidate scores
3. Distribute personalised messages to a large candidate pool
4. Automate responses
5. Direct candidates to application forms

To explore all the features and benefits of Automatic Tracking Systems, read Centralising Recruitment With ATS.

Screening Job Seekers & Conducting Interviews

Before your interview process commences, you need to shortlist applicants by reviewing their CVs or resumes. Indications that you have an admin candidate worth interviewing include:

• Quantifiable evidence of past achievements and skills
• The individual has steady career progression
• The candidate is not job-hopping
• The CV is free from spelling and grammatical errors
• The candidate has the relevant experience, knowledge of admin principles, and specific skills to meet the job requirements

Decision-makers and hiring managers need to be prepared to deliver a consistent interview experience. It helps to ask the same interview questions to each prospect, to aid candidate scoring. Ensure anyone who has candidate contact is on the same page and understands the brand’s vision, values and opportunities. Interviews should be challenging, supportive, positive, and engaging.

Video interviews are an increasingly popular recruitment solution, saving on resources and speeding up the recruitment process. Video sharing, shortlisting, and feedback from hiring and line managers ultimately generate more successful outcomes. If your firm has not conducted a video interview before, read How To Conduct A Remote Interview.

Our article Defining Your Interview Process, discusses interview questions, avoiding unconscious bias & other employment law issues, and interviewing tips.

Presenting A Job Offer & Onboarding Administration Staff

When you have finished interviewing candidates and believe you have the right person for your admin role, you will need to present an offer and onboard the part or full time employees:

Making An Employment Offer

The process of presenting the offer to administration professionals varies depending on what has occurred before. If you don’t already understand the individual’s current earnings, expectations are better managed over the phone. Phone offers should be confident but be prepared to make changes if the individual’s circumstances have changed. Reaffirm that the candidate is happy with the offer, clarify their acceptance, and proceed to a formal written offer, in the same way you would for any company employees.

A formal offer letter from your firm can be conditional (dependent on a background check, etc) or unconditional and should include:

• Job title
• Candidate name
• Your conditions – i.e., this offer is made subject to…
• Official start date, time, and location
• Probationary period
• Offer terms
• Candidate actions and acceptance instructions – i.e., signed copy of job offer
• Terms and conditions of employment (issued within two months of the start date)

You can read further on Presenting A Job Offer here.

Onboarding Admin Staff

The onboarding process should support the worker as they become part of your team.

Actions for onboarding administration staff might include:

• Creating an employer identification number
• Presenting the individual with an employee handbook
• An office tour, introducing the person to their manager, team, and senior executives
• Informing the person of the communication methods and exactly what type of software to use in the new role
• Presenting clear responsibilities and duties
• Defining new role expectations, standards, and performance indicators
• Gathering feedback from new staff

How To Recruit Administration Staff FAQs

Here we answer your admin hiring questions.

How To Hire Staff In Different Sectors

Find our recruitment guides for different sectors below:

• Recruit Accounting Staff
• Recruit Administration Staff
• Recruit Civil Service Staff
• Recruit Construction Staff
• Recruit IT Staff
• Recruit Marketing Staff
• Recruit Retail Staff
• Recruit Sales Staff
• Recruit Transportation Staff

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