What Skills Are Essential for a Front Desk Receptionist?

An effective front desk receptionist needs strong communication, multitasking, and organizational skills to manage administrative tasks efficiently. Highlighting relevant experience and key abilities on a resume improves job prospects by demonstrating professionalism and adaptability in customer-facing roles.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Table of Contents

What skills do front desk receptionists need to have?

How do you run a front desk?

14 resume-worthy talents related to front desk work

What skills do front desk receptionists need to have?

A receptionist at the front desk needs excellent people skills in addition to the ability to multitask and complete administrative work efficiently. Resumes that highlight experience working at a front desk help employers determine if a candidate has the necessary abilities to assist with running the company on a daily basis. To build a list of qualifications to highlight on your CV when applying for a front desk position, research what companies look for in candidates and the reasons behind their selection.

Here, we’ll go over what front desk receptionist skills are, why they are important, and provide fourteen examples to help you choose which ones to highlight on your resume.

How do you run a front desk?

Possessing strong front desk abilities is an asset for anybody working in customer service or an office environment. They are a reflection of a person’s technical and interpersonal abilities in areas like time management, communication, and technology usage. Front desk abilities are essential for many occupations, including receptionists, hotel desk assistants, office assistants, and customer service workers. Employers will see you in a more favorable light if your CV highlights your proficiency in many areas related to the front desk.

14 resume-worthy talents related to front desk work

Being proficient in front desk work requires a diverse set of interpersonal and technical abilities. Take a look at this list to see what you currently have and can include on your resume, as well as what you can work on to make yourself more marketable.

Communicating with people

On a daily basis, persons who work at the front desk engage with a wide range of individuals, including executives, colleagues, consumers, and business clients. Because of the significance of this role, you will need to modify your communication style in order to have productive conversations with all of them. When hiring a front desk receptionist, companies look for candidates with strong interpersonal communication skills since it demonstrates their ability to interact with individuals from all walks of life and positively represent the organization.

Communication through written word

Proper grammar, spelling, tone, and language are essential skills for front desk employees when composing business documents such as memos, emails, and reports. The office manager may, for instance, give the receptionist specific instructions to write an email to a business partner describing forthcoming activities and appointment dates. Workers with strong writing abilities are in high demand for front desk positions because of the potential requirement to draft correspondence with key stakeholders.

Paying attention

When someone is speaking, an active listener shows their interest by nodding, smiling, and making eye contact, as well as by making little verbal gestures. Since front desk employees often engage in conversation with both clients and other employees, the ability to actively listen is crucial for both delivering excellent customer service and understanding specific job instructions. Because of their skill in active listening, the speaker feels valued and understood. With the practice of active listening, a hotel front desk clerk may make a customer who has a complaint feel heard and understood.

A second language

People who work at the front desk in the hospitality business or for a foreign company may have to deal with people whose first language is not English. That is why bilingual or multilingual individuals are often sought after by businesses. A law office receptionist, for instance, might use her bilingualism to help clients over the phone and in-person during their consultations with attorneys.

Paying attention to details

Professionals at the front desk need to have excellent attention to detail skills because of all the precise work they do. It is common practice for front desk agents to take messages from customers and convey them to higher-ups or other workers of the organization. In order for the receiver to call them back at a later time, they must supply the proper contact information. When entering and reviewing computerized schedules, front desk personnel must pay close attention to detail to guarantee the accuracy of the dates and times.

Making Plans

Front desk staff rely on their technical knowledge of scheduling to build, update, and manage the company’s digital planners and schedules. Meetings, business excursions, inventory deliveries, performance reviews, and interview dates are all carefully planned in conjunction with the office manager. Scheduling is a skill that companies look for on a resume, which means that the person is very organized and can meet important dates and complete tasks.

Managing stress

Every day, people who work at the front desk are responsible for a wide range of tasks. In addition, receptionists must assist clients and hotel patrons with any inquiries that may arise. Consequently, those working in these fields require exceptional abilities to cope with stress. One way to deal with stress is to learn to relax and put things in order of priority. Candidates that can demonstrate they can handle their stress well are attractive to employers since it shows they can keep their cool under pressure and get the job done.

For instance, a receptionist’s day can consist of both taking incoming calls from customers requesting to speak with a management over product problems and generating copies for staff.

Solving problems

Being able to recognize issues and come up with solutions is a must-have talent for everyone at the front desk. The ability to do this reliably is crucial to the smooth running of any organization. As an example, when the copy machine keeps printing half of the document every page, an administrative assistant or receptionist goes to the manual to figure out what’s wrong. After doing a battery of experiments, they conclude that switching up the print mode is necessary.

Support for customers

Customer service entails staff members engaging in cordial and empathetic dialogue with consumers in order to address their concerns and respond to their questions. In order to keep clients and customers happy, front desk staff must possess exceptional customer service abilities. Take the scenario when a consumer calls the receptionist, clearly perplexed and in need of assistance with upgrading the software application they bought from the firm. The receptionist helps them out by sending them to the IT help desk, where they may get expert advice.

Adaptability

A person who is flexible is able to change their behavior in response to changing demands or expectations. Professionals at the front desk need to be adaptable in order to accommodate employees’ changing demands for faxing and copying, as well as changes to business schedules, standards, and procedures. If a candidate can demonstrate flexibility on their resume, it shows that they have the qualities necessary to adjust to new situations at work with ease.

Strength and endurance

You should be reasonably fit to work the front desk. Because of the frequent need to move large boxes containing office supplies from one location to another, this is a crucial consideration for the front desk staff. They should also have no problem carrying employees’ mail and other deliveries. As an added perk, front desk clerks may have to use their feet to do errands and direct clients to the correct location. Adding physical stamina to your resume is a great way to show that you can handle a variety of administrative tasks that call for physical strength.

Ability to use a computer

Expertise in the use of computers is becoming increasingly important for front desk employees as they carry out their job responsibilities. Part of this is becoming familiar with the ins and outs of various software applications and computer systems. Workers at the front desk, for instance, input scheduling information into a computerized spreadsheet using software. Not only that, but they handle digital file systems and write documents using word processing software.

Computer literacy is a highly sought-after skill by employers, as it demonstrates to them that a candidate is familiar with and capable of using various computer systems to do routine work.

Correct Phone Behavior

To properly converse over the phone, one must adhere to the rules of phone etiquette, which include politely greeting the caller, introducing oneself, keeping an appropriate tone of voice, and politely ending the discussion. Employees at the front desk must be proficient in verbal and nonverbal communication skills since they spend a lot of time on the phone answering calls and directing customers to the right people.

When a candidate’s CV includes “phone etiquette” as a skill, hiring managers automatically think that they are able to effectively speak over the phone to boost company operations.

Collaboration

In the course of their workday, receptionists often collaborate with other front desk employees as well as corporate personnel. Consequently, they need to be comfortable in a team environment and know how important it is to the smooth running of the company. As an example, at busy times, a receptionist and other front desk employees will divide up the responsibilities of taking phone calls and handling in-person requests.

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What Skills Are Essential for a Front Desk Receptionist?

What skills do front desk receptionists need to have?

How do you run a front desk?

14 resume-worthy talents related to front desk work

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