Vervoe

How To Hire An Office Manager

Admin & Office

Complete with job descriptions, skill profiles, and interview templates. Use this Office Manager hiring guide to help you make the right decisions, fast.

What does a Office Manager do?

An Office Manager is generally responsible for ensuring the office is operating smoothly and that the administrative support team is working efficiently. They are also often responsible for supervising administrative and human resources staff.

Day to day tasks of a Office Manager

  • Prepare reports, presentations, or any materials as required.
  • Oversee the overall office operation.
  • Attend to visitors or clients, monitor phone calls and other correspondences, and provide exceptional customer service to guests.
  • Oversee, supervise, train, and coach the office staff to monitor good performance.
  • Organize the office calendar and coordinate meetings or appointments scheduled for the day.
  • Coordinate any travel arrangements with corresponding suppliers.
  • Ensure delegation of tasks to staff members are efficient and maximum productivity is achieved.
Recruitment guide role overview illustration

An Office Manager’s primary responsibility is to monitor the general operations in the office and make sure that everything is running smoothly and manage any administration staff. Some of the tasks involved are attending to visitors, monitoring phone calls, monitoring office supply inventory, and general supervision of all staff members. Because of these, they require leadership and good communication skills.

Role definition illustration

Office Manager Hiring Process

Build the Ideal Candidate Profile​

To find the best person for the role, you need to understand what the role involves. You can complete this with the hiring manager to define the role, its contribution, and the skills needed.

Write A Job Description Based On Skills

Once you understand the requirements for the role, you’ll need to understand the skills for success. You can then write an effective job description to promote your role.

Selecting The Ideal Candidate

See which applicants have the right skills for the role. Send all your applicants a Vervoe skills assessment from the expert library, or customize one for your organization.

Interview Top Performers

Your skills assessment results will identify top performers. Focus your time on interviewing those that have met or exceeded your requirements. Assessment results will also help guide which skill areas to focus on in the interview.

Making An Offer

Once you assess your candidates against these skills, you’re ready to offer the top performer(s). You should base your offer on the value that the candidate would bring to your team and your business as a whole. It is also important to ensure your compensation and benefits packages are competitive in the industry and help you attract and retain the top talent.

Admin Office sector illustration

Skills needed for a Office Manager

An Office Manager must be customer-focused as he will cater to external clients and even internal ones (management, colleagues, and staff from other departments). Running the office operations smoothly will enable the other departments to perform their jobs efficiently as each one of the units in an office is interconnected with another.

  • Adaptable
  • Assertiveness
  • Communication

How to write a Office Manager job description

Once you’ve determined the skills required for the role, you can write the job description to advertise for your position. Here’s what to include in your Office Manager job description:

Job Title
What position are you hiring for?
Summary
What makes your company unique? What would it be like to work for you?
Responsibilities
An overview of the role’s day-to-day activities, and how the position contributes to the organization
Requirements
Skills a candidate must have to perform the job successfully
Benefits
Details of compensation, benefits, and any perks on offer
Use our sample Office Manager job description
Job description checklist illustration

Sample skill tests for a Office Manager

Create a free account today to access the full assessment and more from our library

Question 1

Assertiveness

Question Type: Text

Being assertive means being able to stand up for your own or other people's rights in a calm and positive way, without being either aggressive or passively accepting 'wrong'.Assertive individuals are able to get their point across without upsetting others or becoming upset themselves.Explain a situation you have been in where you have had to demonstrate assertiveness, how did you feel, act, what did you do?

Question 2

Communication

Question Type: Video

Describe a technical problem you dealt with at your previous company. How did you resolve it?

Question 3

Adaptable

Question Type: Text

The organization has recently changed the way that it processes expenses which requires a new system. You don't agree with the change but you have been allocated responsibility to implement it across the business.Outline your process for doing this implementation.

How to interview a Office Manager

Once your Vervoe skills assessment has surfaced the most qualified people for your open role, you can focus on interviewing these candidates. The interview should focus on any skills that require development that were highlighted from the skills assessment.

Now you know that candidates can do the job, the interview becomes more of a relationship building exercise where you can get to know the candidate on a more personal level, understand their motivations, and how they would fit in with the team.

How much does it cost to hire a Office Manager?

The US average for an Office Manager is $61,831 according to Glassdoor.com, while Salary.com reports it at $78,936. The lowest salary reported is at $42,000, and the highest is at $128,000. Some companies can offer additional pay, depending on the nature of the business, through performance or cash bonus, incentives, or profit sharing.

United States

Office Manager salaries in the United States range from $42,000 - $128,000. The average falls between $61,000 - $78,000. Salaries can vary depending on the education, years of experience, additional skills, and the location.

Source: Source: Glassdoor.com; Salary.com

United Kingdom

Office Manager salaries in the United Kingdom range from £19,000 - £47,000 (GBP). The average falls between £25,000 - £31,000 (GBP). Salaries can vary depending on the education, years of experience, additional skills, and the location.

Source: Source: Glassdoor.com; Payscale.com

Australia

Office Manager salaries in Australia range from $49,000 - $132,000 (AUD). The average falls between $63,000 - $85,000 (AUD). Salaries can vary depending on the education, years of experience, additional skills, and the location.

Source: Source: Payscale.com; Talent.com