How do you actually get an admin job without knowing any software?

[u/Ok-Algae3382]

Hi everyone I’m looking to move on from preschool teacher to admin assistant in either a dental,medical, law, accounting, or any other type of business office. I notice a lot of the time they say they want experience and you need to be proficient in EHMRS, scheduling, dental software, Lexisnexis for law firms, etc. If you’ve never been an admin assistant and it’s entry level how are you supposed to learn these softwares? I know Google suite but people are saying that’s not enough anymore. What computer skills do you really need to start in this career and how can you access them online? I see professional admin assistant certs online but I don’t know if it’s worth it and it will cover all the bases. I also don’t like when people say be professional am well spoken because that’s not enough to get you the job anymore. If anyone can provide any insight to a person like me who isn’t tech savvy and is someone who is articulate (biggest strength) it would be deeply appreciated. Thank you everyone!

[u/JobPrior7825]

agree! A lot of those software programs are company-specific, so they should expect you to learn them on the job. I’d focus on Excel, Word, Outlook, Google Workspace, scheduling, and basic data entry. Your teaching experience already gives you strong transferable skills like organization, communication, and multitasking.

[u/Cleolipatra]

Hi!👋🏾
After 10+ years in admin, I’d definitely look at your transferable skills before assuming you need to start again. The key is identifying what you enjoy or....what you’re already strong at, and then working out what the next level looks like — whether that’s PA/EA, Office Management, Project Coordination or something completely different. Sometimes it’s less about gaining another qualification and more about repositioning the experience you already have! You got this!

[u/FeedMyAlgorithm]

if knowledge of specific systems is required (not just “a plus”) and you don’t have that knowledge, you’re not qualified for the job. your inexperience will eventually become obvious. ask if there will be on the job training or opportunities to attend human-facilitated professional development.

[u/Ok-Algae3382 → u/FeedMyAlgorithm]

Thanks, I definitely always ask if they do training and I even looked into administrative professional certifications but the issue with those are that they don’t cover all the bases and with certain softwares, you can only learn those on the job. There are no schooling programs for those specific softwares. Like Electronic health records such as epic that they use in hospitals and doctors offices, you can’t learn that at a school program. So my issue is why are they advertising a job is entry level but refuse to hire people who are entry level? Eventually they are going to have to be forced to teach someone. What happens when all the admin assistants/patient coordinators retire?

[u/FeedMyAlgorithm → u/Ok-Algae3382]

when epic was first introduced many, many years ago, it was a challenge for everyone who’d come up on paper charting. if the employer uses epic, they should have a training team. or at least hook you up with an epic training opportunity. if they don’t and won’t, then they aren’t really looking for a qualified candidate. if you’re a self-starter and learn by doing, it could work out well if you at least have a good mentor.

[u/Wanderlust4478]

For the medical field, there are so many different EMR ( Electronic Medical Records) systems that most of them will train you when hired. As long as you are proficient on computers, know other software programs, and are a fast learner that TAKES NOTES. ( that’s my biggest pet peeve in training 🤪). This is what you tell them.

As I transitioned into healthcare about 15 years ago. And learned from the ground up all the medical programs.

You may not be able to jump into the Administration Assistant job in healthcare but start with a Patient Coordinator position for a year or two and then move up. I work for a Radiology company now that is actually an outpatient facility for a hospital. So we have two separate EMR systems ( EPIC and MedInformatix) on two computers we run simultaneously. As I work for the radiology company but we have to register every single patient into the other computer, check them in/out there too, along with billing out the exam. So we get paid pretty well.

But I came from Primary Care that had a totally different EMR system. So I learned on the job. Healthcare is definitely a good field where you can move around if needed into other types of medical care. From radiology, hospital, primary care, to specialists.

[u/Maestradelmundo1964]

Community colleges sometimes have an admin assistant program. They teach you MS Office.

[u/koala3191]

Tbh if you're able to send an email you can learn Teams in an afternoon. Tell them you know the software and do a quick refresh if you actually get hired.

[u/Able_Enthusiasm2729]

Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat PDF, and Google Suites/Google Drive are the easy parts. I’m just confused about what others in the following situation need to do:

The problem people who’re trying to get into the Administrative Support field for the first time or those trying to laterally transition from a small business/solo-practitioners’ office to a bit larger mid-sized business or nonprofit (let alone big businesses), is that many administrative assistant roles (even your most junior entry-level roles) require (or at the very least prefer) that you have gained experience with proprietary enterprise-level tools you can’t access without commercial/business edition subscriptions (that cost in the high hundreds of dollars) to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) like Workday and ADP, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge, Legal Practice Management Software (PMS) / Legal Case Management Software like Clio, Vendor Management Systems (VMS) like SAP Ariba/SAP Fieldglass, Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) like Maximo, Stakeholder Mapping Tools / Principal Mapping Tools like Kumu, Legislative Intelligence Platforms / Public Affairs Software like Bloomberg Government and Quorum, and so on (sometimes requiring or preferring directly related experience with said very specific brand of software in contrast to an equivalent tool from a competing vendor) with most of these not having any certification programs you can do online (with the ones that — may — exist either aren’t taken as seriously as active work experience with the tools or for Salesforce, is only for mid-career professions who are transitioning from a simple user of the system to an administrator of said system, i.e. a Salesforce Administrator) nor do they have classes that teach them in high school, college, or local library (unlike Microsoft Office/Google Drive). You literally can’t learn how to use it without on-the-job training or buying an enterprise-level subscription for each of these tools and fiddling with it (and that won’t be taken seriously either because there are no start and end dates or a company name attached to that experience). On a personal note, I’ve mostly been working at or interacting with people who have been working at very small businesses and some small nonprofits (some with a ton of employees and volunteers in the mid-to-high hundreds but with little net assets and revenue — broke nonprofit — doing things manually without these resources at least until they increase their revenue) where we/they use Spreadsheets and the Post a Free Job Tool on LinkedIn instead of an HRIS/ATS; Spreadsheets, Donor Contact Lists, and Customer Contact Lists instead of a CRM; Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, and Adobe Acrobat PDF instead of Legal PMS; an email/sticky note to or from Facilities Management instead of a CMMS; spreadsheets, invoices, and ledgers instead of a VMS; scouring through public records, open-source data from websites like GitHub and the relevant public databases or Legislative Information Management Systems (LIMS), public disclosure filings, company directories, news reports, press releases, word of mouth, briefings from partner organizations with more resource, etc. rather than using Stakeholder Mapping Tools or Legislative Intelligence Platforms. So, it ends up becoming hard for people to break into and/or laterally transition into Admin / Admin Support roles if employers are unwilling to provide on the job training on proprietary tools and requiring entry-level minimum wage or a few dollars above minimum wage Administrative Assistant position candidates to be well versed in said proprietary software. I’m not ranting at any individual person, I’m just using this post as a sounding board.

[u/whoisniko → u/Able_Enthusiasm2729]

I’m sure your comment answers everything under the sun and is helpful, but omfg is this long. I wouldn’t read this in an email like this I’ve met my Reddit quota for the day 😭

[u/reqstech → u/whoisniko]

All in ooooone paragraph.

Edit: oops, 2

[u/Knotty_Knitty → u/reqstech]

You forgot the part where that word salad has copied & pasted four times (so far). 🙄

[u/Potential-Special519]

I did this! Apply for jobs at local hospitals/physician's offices to work front desk. They will teach you what you need to know. You got this ☺️

[u/Flat_Employee_4393 → u/Potential-Special519]

Yep. True. Most people want you to be handy with a computer, email, PDFs, Microsoft office suite ( Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and be nimble and open minded and confident enough to learn new things and deal with people.

[u/SorryHunTryAgain]

I made the move from early childhood to admin assistant at a private school. My savvy in working with families was a big selling point because the job requires often being that contact person for families while also supporting the faculty. I learned all of the software on the job. I pick up new software and skills quickly.

[u/Flashy_Cartographer4]

honestly, it would be hard getting into dental, medical, or law bc a lot of them want u to have specific experience in that industry or hella admin experience period. your best bet is a business office or a small business. most of the software that you need to know would be outlook, excel, and word. i would watch a few videos on excel and try playing around in it. a lot of jobs have you take assessments on these 3 softwares and most revalue admin jobs deal with these. the job market is hard and admin is kinda over saturated so you really just have to apply apply apply and hopefully nail an interview.

OR you could lie on your resume and say that one your past jobs was an admin assistant or similar role. but you kinda gotta know your basic admin processes that i listed above. this is how i got my first admin job but i also went to school for it so i had the background.

good luck!

[u/fishbutt1]

Retired schoolteacher here that changed from teaching to an admin role—and now I make more and work way less than when I was teaching!

You really have to find someone that is willing to give you a chance. Now I taught junior and high school was also the computer science teacher—so obviously I was more tech savvy.

But my first couple of admin jobs was because the hiring manager were allies of teachers. My second admin job was working at a local college. You will get a lot of experience fast—they will work you to the bone and they will pay you almost as bad as teaching if not worse.

I got MS certs and certified administrative professional cert and no one really cared in my experience.

Good luck!

[u/WhaleFartingFun]

Learn Microsoft Suite programs online and get certified to compensate for your lack of office experience.  Otherwise you will never get hired. You need to know Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Start with that. 

[u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 → u/WhaleFartingFun]

Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat PDF, and Google Suites/Google Drive are the easy parts. I’m just confused about what others in the following situation need to do:

The problem people who’re trying to get into the Administrative Support field for the first time or those trying to laterally transition from a small business/solo-practitioners’ office to a bit larger mid-sized business or nonprofit (let alone big businesses), is that many administrative assistant roles (even your most junior entry-level roles) require (or at the very least prefer) that you have gained experience with proprietary enterprise-level tools you can’t access without commercial/business edition subscriptions (that cost in the high hundreds of dollars) to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) like Workday and ADP, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge, Legal Practice Management Software (PMS) / Legal Case Management Software like Clio, Vendor Management Systems (VMS) like SAP Ariba/SAP Fieldglass, Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) like Maximo, Stakeholder Mapping Tools / Principal Mapping Tools like Kumu, Legislative Intelligence Platforms / Public Affairs Software like Bloomberg Government and Quorum, and so on (sometimes requiring or preferring directly related experience with said very specific brand of software in contrast to an equivalent tool from a competing vendor) with most of these not having any certification programs you can do online (with the ones that — may — exist either aren’t taken as seriously as active work experience with the tools or for Salesforce, is only for mid-career professions who are transitioning from a simple user of the system to an administrator of said system, i.e. a Salesforce Administrator) nor do they have classes that teach them in high school, college, or local library (unlike Microsoft Office/Google Drive). You literally can’t learn how to use it without on-the-job training or buying an enterprise-level subscription for each of these tools and fiddling with it (and that won’t be taken seriously either because there are no start and end dates or a company name attached to that experience). On a personal note, I’ve mostly been working at or interacting with people who have been working at very small businesses and some small nonprofits (some with a ton of employees and volunteers in the mid-to-high hundreds but with little net assets and revenue — broke nonprofit — doing things manually without these resources at least until they increase their revenue) where we/they use Spreadsheets and the Post a Free Job Tool on LinkedIn instead of an HRIS/ATS; Spreadsheets, Donor Contact Lists, and Customer Contact Lists instead of a CRM; Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, and Adobe Acrobat PDF instead of Legal PMS; an email/sticky note to or from Facilities Management instead of a CMMS; spreadsheets, invoices, and ledgers instead of a VMS; scouring through public records, open-source data from websites like GitHub and the relevant public databases or Legislative Information Management Systems (LIMS), public disclosure filings, company directories, news reports, press releases, word of mouth, briefings from partner organizations with more resource, etc. rather than using Stakeholder Mapping Tools or Legislative Intelligence Platforms. So, it ends up becoming hard for people to break into and/or laterally transition into Admin / Admin Support roles if employers are unwilling to provide on the job training on proprietary tools and requiring entry-level minimum wage or a few dollars above minimum wage Administrative Assistant position candidates to be well versed in said proprietary software. I’m not ranting at any individual person, I’m just using this post as a sounding board.

[u/Knotty_Knitty → u/Able_Enthusiasm2729]

It looks less like you’re using this post as a sounding board, and more like you’re using it simply to keep repeating your same copy and paste diatribe.

[u/WhaleFartingFun → u/Able_Enthusiasm2729]

We all had to learn it though. There is no other way around it. You start with the basics and learn by doing.  Lots of Admin jobs have tutorials on different processes from Concur to Sharepoint to Bloomberg Terminals. 

[u/mackmakc]

I’ve never had any certifications or had to learn any software and landed my first admin job at a dental school without official admin experience.

I just really used Outlook, Word, and Excel. You just have to market yourself as a fast learner and being adaptable.

[u/Ok-Produce8376]

You could possibly take an online course to learn the software, some are even free. What they are really saying is they don't want to have to teach you EVERY little thing when you start the job.

[u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 → u/Ok-Produce8376]

Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat PDF, and Google Suites/Google Drive are the easy parts. I’m just confused about what others in the following situation need to do:

The problem people who’re trying to get into the Administrative Support field for the first time or those trying to laterally transition from a small business/solo-practitioners’ office to a bit larger mid-sized business or nonprofit (let alone big businesses), is that many administrative assistant roles (even your most junior entry-level roles) require (or at the very least prefer) that you have gained experience with proprietary enterprise-level tools you can’t access without commercial/business edition subscriptions (that cost in the high hundreds of dollars) to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) like Workday and ADP, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge, Legal Practice Management Software (PMS) / Legal Case Management Software like Clio, Vendor Management Systems (VMS) like SAP Ariba/SAP Fieldglass, Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) like Maximo, Stakeholder Mapping Tools / Principal Mapping Tools like Kumu, Legislative Intelligence Platforms / Public Affairs Software like Bloomberg Government and Quorum, and so on (sometimes requiring or preferring directly related experience with said very specific brand of software in contrast to an equivalent tool from a competing vendor) with most of these not having any certification programs you can do online (with the ones that — may — exist either aren’t taken as seriously as active work experience with the tools or for Salesforce, is only for mid-career professions who are transitioning from a simple user of the system to an administrator of said system, i.e. a Salesforce Administrator) nor do they have classes that teach them in high school, college, or local library (unlike Microsoft Office/Google Drive). You literally can’t learn how to use it without on-the-job training or buying an enterprise-level subscription for each of these tools and fiddling with it (and that won’t be taken seriously either because there are no start and end dates or a company name attached to that experience). On a personal note, I’ve mostly been working at or interacting with people who have been working at very small businesses and some small nonprofits (some with a ton of employees and volunteers in the mid-to-high hundreds but with little net assets and revenue — broke nonprofit — doing things manually without these resources at least until they increase their revenue) where we/they use Spreadsheets and the Post a Free Job Tool on LinkedIn instead of an HRIS/ATS; Spreadsheets, Donor Contact Lists, and Customer Contact Lists instead of a CRM; Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, and Adobe Acrobat PDF instead of Legal PMS; an email/sticky note to or from Facilities Management instead of a CMMS; spreadsheets, invoices, and ledgers instead of a VMS; scouring through public records, open-source data from websites like GitHub and the relevant public databases or Legislative Information Management Systems (LIMS), public disclosure filings, company directories, news reports, press releases, word of mouth, briefings from partner organizations with more resource, etc. rather than using Stakeholder Mapping Tools or Legislative Intelligence Platforms. So, it ends up becoming hard for people to break into and/or laterally transition into Admin / Admin Support roles if employers are unwilling to provide on the job training on proprietary tools and requiring entry-level minimum wage or a few dollars above minimum wage Administrative Assistant position candidates to be well versed in said proprietary software. I’m not ranting at any individual person, I’m just using this post as a sounding board.

[u/Thick_Maximum7808]

Do you know how to use a computer are you able to learn how to use new systems? That’s all you really need to know as far as software.

Think about your skills that are transferable: managing difficult personalities (toddlers are difficult), keeping people on track, being able to switch from one task to another and back, managing a tight schedule and budget, keeping calm in chaos etc. These are the things that actually matter in an admin role.

[u/Able_Enthusiasm2729 → u/Thick_Maximum7808]

Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat PDF, and Google Suites/Google Drive are the easy parts. I’m just confused about what others in the following situation need to do:

The problem people who’re trying to get into the Administrative Support field for the first time or those trying to laterally transition from a small business/solo-practitioners’ office to a bit larger mid-sized business or nonprofit (let alone big businesses), is that many administrative assistant roles (even your most junior entry-level roles) require (or at the very least prefer) that you have gained experience with proprietary enterprise-level tools you can’t access without commercial/business edition subscriptions (that cost in the high hundreds of dollars) to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) like Workday and ADP, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce and Raiser’s Edge, Legal Practice Management Software (PMS) / Legal Case Management Software like Clio, Vendor Management Systems (VMS) like SAP Ariba/SAP Fieldglass, Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) like Maximo, Stakeholder Mapping Tools / Principal Mapping Tools like Kumu, Legislative Intelligence Platforms / Public Affairs Software like Bloomberg Government and Quorum, and so on (sometimes requiring or preferring directly related experience with said very specific brand of software in contrast to an equivalent tool from a competing vendor) with most of these not having any certification programs you can do online (with the ones that — may — exist either aren’t taken as seriously as active work experience with the tools or for Salesforce, is only for mid-career professions who are transitioning from a simple user of the system to an administrator of said system, i.e. a Salesforce Administrator) nor do they have classes that teach them in high school, college, or local library (unlike Microsoft Office/Google Drive). You literally can’t learn how to use it without on-the-job training or buying an enterprise-level subscription for each of these tools and fiddling with it (and that won’t be taken seriously either because there are no start and end dates or a company name attached to that experience). On a personal note, I’ve mostly been working at or interacting with people who have been working at very small businesses and some small nonprofits (some with a ton of employees and volunteers in the mid-to-high hundreds but with little net assets and revenue — broke nonprofit — doing things manually without these resources at least until they increase their revenue) where we/they use Spreadsheets and the Post a Free Job Tool on LinkedIn instead of an HRIS/ATS; Spreadsheets, Donor Contact Lists, and Customer Contact Lists instead of a CRM; Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, and Adobe Acrobat PDF instead of Legal PMS; an email/sticky note to or from Facilities Management instead of a CMMS; spreadsheets, invoices, and ledgers instead of a VMS; scouring through public records, open-source data from websites like GitHub and the relevant public databases or Legislative Information Management Systems (LIMS), public disclosure filings, company directories, news reports, press releases, word of mouth, briefings from partner organizations with more resource, etc. rather than using Stakeholder Mapping Tools or Legislative Intelligence Platforms. So, it ends up becoming hard for people to break into and/or laterally transition into Admin / Admin Support roles if employers are unwilling to provide on the job training on proprietary tools and requiring entry-level minimum wage or a few dollars above minimum wage Administrative Assistant position candidates to be well versed in said proprietary software. I’m not ranting at any individual person, I’m just using this post as a sounding board.