Office Manager Resumes: Presenting Diverse Responsibilities Succinctly and Compellingly

Developing a career synopsis for an office manager can be akin to an attempt to create a resume for a  mother of school-aged children.  Viewed in toto, the critical and highly diverse duties of both can easily be distilled down to a single phrase:  “I do it all!”  However expedient that expression may appear, it will do little, on a career document, to secure an interview.  Office managers, then, can benefit by applying the same general methodology to the writing of their resumes as they bring to the business environment:  organization, time management, creativity, and integrity.

In organizing office manager resumes, candidates will wish to approach their tasks in terms of overall skill sets; for example, bookkeeping and associated financial duties (accounts payable, accounts receivable, collection of outstanding debt, development of general-purpose financial statements), human resources (employee training, administration of health benefits programs, execution of the payroll function), purchasing (inventory control, vendor selection and negotiation), document production (authoring of business correspondence, maintenance of spreadsheet data, generation of various reports), and supervision and motivation of support staff. 

Viewed as interrelated job functions, applicants can then apply sound time management abilities to the development of their career documents.  Understanding that employers are compelled to maximize their time and energy in locating qualified personnel, candidates can refine their responsibilities on office manager resumes into succinct, meaningful phrases.  Simultaneously, office professionals can capitalize upon the rich tapestry of key words engendered by their multi-faceted roles.  If one intends to seek employment within one’s own industry, the integration of industry-specific tasks and terms is logical and highly recommended.

Finally, the office Go-To-Person must blend creativity with honesty in expounding upon his or her accomplishments.  If you are that Go-To-Person, consider the following questions for purposes of highlighting them as possible scenarios.  To ensure that your resume “SOARS,” state the problem or existing situation, explain how you viewed and turned that into an opportunity, and elucidate the ensuing impact that your efforts had upon the company.

Did you ….

• Need to locate new real estate as a result of the company’s expansion or downsizing?
• Staff the new location; in so doing, did you reconfigure job duties so as to consolidate functions and realize cost savings?
• Identify a less expensive health benefits plan that satisfied managements’ cost containment initiative while still providing the employees with a reasonable amount of coverage?

Did you …

• Establish, systematize, or improve a process or procedure?
• Achieve quantifiable results (i.e. Instituted and implemented measures that reduced the accounts receivable cycle from an average of 60 days to an average of 30)?

Did you …

• Research and recommend the acquisition of a new software application that enhanced productivity?
• If so, how, and by how much?

By approaching office manager resumes in this vein, a professional can present oneself as a diligent, resourceful employee whose talent is as essential to the daily operation of the business as it is to its long-term growth and success.