Free Secretary Job Description Templates
Free secretary job description templates for small business: general, administrative, executive, medical, legal, and school. Download as DOCX.
Secretary Job Description Templates
6 free templates by type. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
For a small business, the secretary is often the person who keeps everything running: the phones, the schedule, the records, the steady hand at the front of the office. Hiring the right one matters, and the job description is where you make the role clear. Secretary is an elastic title, though: it can mean a general office secretary, a department administrative secretary, an executive's right hand, or a specialized medical, legal, or school role. A specific posting filters for the person who fits both the type and the reality of your business.
At FirstHR, we build for small businesses that hire without an HR department, where the owner or office manager writes the posting between everything else. The six templates below cover the most common versions of the role: general, administrative, executive, medical, legal, and school. Each is ready to use. Fill in the bracketed fields, adjust to match your business, and post. For the general principles behind any posting, the guide to writing a job description covers the fundamentals.
What Is a Secretary Job Description?
A secretary job description is a document that explains the role's purpose, responsibilities, skills, and pay so you can post a job and attract the right candidates. It typically covers a job summary, key responsibilities, required skills, the pay, and how to apply. The SHRM job description tools describe a job description as a plain-language tool that explains the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a position, and that standard applies whether you are a national company or a single small office.
Because the title spans general office work, executive support, and specialized medical, legal, and school roles, the most important job of the description is to make the type and scope unmistakable. The duties of a medical secretary protecting patient privacy look very different from those of a legal secretary tracking court deadlines. If your main need is greeting visitors and answering the phones, the receptionist job description templates cover that front-desk focus instead.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template that matches the type of secretary you need. The core structure is the same across all six, but each one emphasizes the responsibilities, skills, and language that fit a specific kind of role. Use this guide to choose.
6 Free Secretary Job Description Templates
Download all six as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each one follows the same structure: company overview, job summary, responsibilities, skills, compensation, and how to apply. Fill in the brackets before you post.
Template 1: Secretary (General / Office)
The universal baseline. Phones, scheduling, correspondence, and records for any office. Use this if your role does not fit cleanly into a specific type.
Template 2: Administrative Secretary
Broader administrative support: reports, projects, databases, and coordination beyond core secretarial work. For a more senior, independent role.
Template 3: Executive Secretary
High-level support to an owner or executive: calendar, gatekeeping, confidential work, and priorities. For an experienced, discreet hire.
Template 4: Medical Secretary
Patient scheduling, medical records, insurance, and HIPAA-aware front office work. For a clinic or practice, where demand for the role is growing.
Template 5: Legal Secretary
Legal documents, court deadlines, case files, and client confidentiality. For a law firm or legal department.
Template 6: School Secretary
Front office, student records, parent communication, and daily school operations. For a school or education organization.
What Does a Secretary Do?
A secretary keeps an office organized and supports the people in it. The duties fall into four broad categories. A good job description picks the specific duties from each category that apply to your business and type rather than listing every possible task.
The mix shifts by type: a medical secretary weighs heavily toward patient scheduling and records, while an executive secretary spends more time on calendar management and confidential coordination. At a small business, one secretary usually covers all four categories plus whatever else the office needs. For help scoping the role precisely before you write the posting, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through a simple process.
What to Include in a Secretary Job Description
Every strong secretary job description includes the same core sections. The templates above are built around them, but it helps to know how to make the duties concrete. Specific, measurable duties attract candidates who can actually do the work.
| Weak bullet | Strong bullet |
|---|---|
| Answer phones | Answer and direct phone calls and take accurate messages |
| Handle scheduling | Manage calendars, appointments, and meeting coordination |
| Do paperwork | Draft, format, and proofread correspondence and documents |
| Keep things filed | Maintain paper and digital filing systems accurately |
| Be organized | Track supplies and keep the office running day to day |
Keep the language neutral and inclusive too, since the EEOC prohibits job advertisements that show a preference based on protected characteristics. For recognized tasks and skills you can borrow, the O*NET profile for secretaries and administrative assistants lists standard responsibilities and work activities.
Secretary vs Administrative Assistant vs Receptionist
These three titles overlap and are often confused. Getting the distinction right helps you title the job correctly and attract the right candidates. This table shows how they typically differ.
| Factor | Secretary | Admin Assistant | Receptionist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main focus | Clerical and organizational support | Broader projects and coordination | Front desk and visitors |
| Scope | Phones, scheduling, records | Reports, databases, independent work | Greeting, calls, check-in |
| Seniority | Entry to mid-level | Mid-level, more independent | Entry-level |
| Public-facing | Sometimes | Less often | Always |
| Reports to | Manager or department | Manager or executive | Office manager or front desk |
The lines blur in practice, and at a small business one person may do all three jobs. If the role is broader and more project-focused, you may want an administrative assistant instead. If it leans toward managing the whole office, the office manager job description may fit better. Match the title and template to the real tasks, not just the label.
Skills and Requirements
Most secretary roles value organization, communication, and attention to detail, along with discretion around confidential information. Beyond that, the specific skills shift by type, and the strongest postings use concrete language and reasonable requirements.
Keep your must-have list short and treat specialized training as preferred where you can. Over-specifying requirements narrows your applicant pool unnecessarily, especially for general roles where most of the work is learned on the job within a few weeks.
Secretary Pay
Set your pay using market data, adjusted for the type of secretary, region, and industry. Pay varies because the role spans general office work to specialized executive, medical, and legal positions.
Position your rate against the type and experience: general and entry-level secretaries sit at the lower end, while executive secretaries and specialized medical or legal roles sit higher, especially with experience. Always state a pay rate. It is now legally required in many states and it attracts more qualified applicants. Federal wage and hour rules also apply, so review the basics in the Department of Labor FLSA standards before you set pay and classify the role.
Hiring a Secretary Without an HR Department
Large companies have HR teams, standardized hiring, and clear role boundaries. A small business has none of that. The owner or office manager writes the posting, interviews, and onboards the new hire personally, and the secretary often ends up wearing several hats. The small business hiring guide covers the steps around the posting itself for a lean team. Here is how to write the secretary posting for that reality.
From Hiring to Onboarding
The job description is step one. Once a candidate accepts, the same document becomes the foundation for the offer and the onboarding plan. A secretary needs a clear start because they quickly handle your communications, records, and often confidential information, and a smooth start gets them productive sooner.
Send a clear offer, collect signed paperwork, store the signed job description in the employee's personnel file, and walk through your systems, calendars, and filing in the first days. Once you have your offer ready, an onboarding template gives your new secretary a structured start. There is an extra reason to set this up well: at a small business, the secretary often becomes the person who manages HR paperwork and onboarding for everyone else. FirstHR connects the offer, paperwork, document storage, and onboarding workflow in one place, so the person you hire by this template has a simple system to run instead of scattered spreadsheets.
Keeping signed documents on file matters, so the guide to HR document management explains how to organize personnel files even without an HR team. As you add roles, the guide to building an org chart helps you map where the secretary fits and who they report to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a secretary do?
A secretary keeps an office organized and running by handling communication, scheduling, correspondence, and records. Core duties include answering and directing phone calls, managing calendars and appointments, greeting visitors, drafting and formatting documents, maintaining filing systems, and ordering supplies. The specifics depend on the type. A medical secretary manages patient scheduling and records, a legal secretary prepares filings and tracks court deadlines, and an executive secretary supports leadership with high-level coordination. In a small business, one secretary often handles all general office work and may also take on light HR tasks. A clear job description tells candidates which version of the role you are hiring for.
What should a secretary job description include?
A strong secretary job description includes a short job summary, a list of responsibilities, required skills, the pay, and how to apply. Responsibilities should be concrete: answer and direct phone calls, manage calendars and appointments, and maintain filing systems. Name the type of secretary you need, since general, administrative, executive, medical, legal, and school roles differ significantly in skills and pay. Separate must-have skills from nice-to-have ones, and name the software and systems you use. Being specific filters for candidates who can actually do the work and signals a serious employer worth applying to.
What is the difference between a secretary and an administrative assistant?
The titles overlap heavily and are often used interchangeably, but there is a general distinction. A secretary typically handles core clerical and organizational tasks: phones, scheduling, correspondence, and filing. An administrative assistant often takes on a broader and more independent role, including projects, reports, database management, and coordination across a team or department. Administrative assistant is sometimes seen as the more senior or modern title. In practice, the duties matter more than the label. When you write your posting, describe the actual scope and responsibilities rather than relying on the title, since employers and candidates define these roles differently.
What is the difference between a secretary and a receptionist?
A receptionist focuses on front-desk and visitor-facing duties: greeting people, answering and routing calls, and handling check-in. A secretary has a broader administrative scope that includes scheduling, correspondence, document preparation, and records management, often supporting specific people or a department. A receptionist is usually front-of-house, while a secretary handles deeper administrative work. At a small business, one person may do both. If your main need is greeting visitors and managing the phones and front desk, you may be looking for a receptionist rather than a secretary. Decide based on the tasks, not the title.
What skills does a secretary need?
A good secretary combines strong organization, clear communication, and attention to detail with discretion around confidential information. Core skills include managing phones and schedules, preparing and proofreading documents, maintaining filing systems, and proficiency with word processing, spreadsheets, and email. Specialized roles add specific knowledge: a medical secretary needs medical terminology and HIPAA awareness, a legal secretary needs legal documents and filing procedures, and an executive secretary needs advanced calendar management and judgment. Most secretary roles require only a high school diploma, with prior office experience as a plus. Keep your must-have list short to widen the applicant pool.
What is the salary range for a secretary?
Secretary pay varies by type, region, and industry. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median annual wage of about $47,460 for secretaries and administrative assistants in May 2024, which works out to roughly $22.82 an hour. General and entry-level secretaries sit toward the lower end, while executive secretaries and specialized medical or legal roles tend to earn more, especially with experience. About half of all secretaries work in healthcare, education, and professional services. Always state a pay rate in your posting, since pay transparency is required in many states and a clear figure attracts more qualified applicants while filtering out mismatches.
Is the secretary at a small business usually the HR person too?
Often, yes. At a company of 5 to 50 people without a dedicated HR department, the secretary or office administrator frequently becomes the de facto HR person. They collect new hire paperwork, keep personnel files, track time off, help onboard new employees, and manage day-to-day people operations. If that describes your situation, mention it in the job description and hire someone comfortable with light HR and recordkeeping. The person you bring in will likely become the one who keeps your HR routine organized, so it helps to give them a simple system to manage it rather than spreadsheets and scattered files.
What happens after I hire a secretary?
Once a candidate accepts, the job description becomes the basis for the offer and onboarding. A secretary needs a clear start because they quickly handle your communications, records, and often confidential information. Send a clear offer, collect signed paperwork, store the signed job description in their personnel file, and walk through your systems, calendars, and filing in the first days. Since a small-business secretary often takes on HR tasks too, set them up with the right tools from the start. FirstHR handles the offer, document collection, e-signature, and onboarding workflow in one place, so a small business can move a new secretary from hire to productive without a dedicated HR department.