General Office Clerks

HOW TO GET THERE

Typical pathway

A typical path starts with a secondary school diploma, with strong computer, English, and office skills helping a lot. Many people build experience through part-time office, reception, clerical, or customer service work. Some employers prefer applicants with college training in office administration or a related certificate or diploma, while others train new staff on the job. Early experience with word processing, spreadsheets, filing, phones, mail handling, and basic bookkeeping can be useful. Exact requirements may vary by employer, province, or the type of office work involved.

THE WORK

What you may do

Legacy duties

• Key in, edit, proofread and finalize correspondence, reports, statements, invoices, forms, presentations and other documents, from notes or dictaphone, using computers
• Respond to telephone, in person or electronic enquiries or forward to appropriate person
• Provide general information to clients and the public
• Photocopy and collate documents for distribution, mailing and filing
• Maintain and prepare reports from manual or electronic files, inventories, mailing lists and databases
• Process incoming and outgoing mail, manually or electronically
• Send and receive messages and documents using fax machine or electronic mail
• May perform bookkeeping tasks such as preparing invoices and bank deposits
• May sort, process and verify applications, receipts, expenditures, forms and other documents
• May order office supplies, service office equipment and arrange for servicing in the case of major repairs.

SKILLS TO BUILD

Skills used in this Career