Office Clerks, General
Office and Administrative Support
Duties shift with the office: answering phones and taking messages, talking with customers or coworkers, running photocopiers and scanners, and keeping files, inventories, and databases up to date. Mail gets opened and routed; outgoing letters get written or prepared. Records of transactions and office activity are compiled, copied, sorted, and checked for accuracy so questions can be answered from the file. Because the mix changes by workplace, the job fits people who like switching among several clerical tasks, dealing with people at the desk or on the phone, and keeping ordinary office systems in order.
Typical education: High School Diploma or GED
Annual Median Wage in Field (2025)
$45'010
Median Wage Market Position
$45'010
What you might do
- Answer phones, take messages, and transfer calls
- Answer questions from customers and coworkers
- Keep files, inventories, and databases current
- Copy, scan, and print documents on office machines
- Open incoming mail and prepare outgoing mail
- Compute, record, and proofread figures and reports
Skills that matter
- Answering phones and taking messages
- Explaining information to customers and staff
- Reading files to answer requests
- Keeping filing and database systems current
- Writing replies and preparing outgoing mail
- Proofreading figures in records and reports
AI & the future of this role
Routine phone intake, data entry, filing, and basic bookkeeping are increasingly easy for software to absorb. Coordination and judgment still matter in messy workflows, yet demand for purely clerical volume may keep shrinking.
Does Office Clerks, General fit your values?
Take the free LostInCareer assessment to see personalized matches based on your core values—not just a personality label.
Related careers
Includes O*NET® 30.3 Database information by USDOL/ETA under CC BY 4.0; modified by LostInCareer. Wage/outlook from BLS. Attribution details