Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a receptionist and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A Receptionist is liable for serving visitors by greeting, welcoming and directing them appropriately and notifying company personnel of visitor arrival.

The duties of this position are welcoming visitors by greeting them in person or on the telephone, answering or referring inquiries, directing visitors by maintaining employees and department directories, maintaining security by following procedures, monitoring logbook issuing visitor badges, maintaining telecommunication system by following manufacturer's instructions for house phones and console operation, maintaining safe and clean reception area by complying with procedures, rules and regulations, maintaining continuity among work teams by documenting, and communicating actions, irregularities and continuing needs, contributing to team effort by accomplishing related answers as needed.

Core Skills Required to be a Receptionist

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A receptionist should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Collaborating with others:

Collaborating is willingly working with one another and cooperating in whatever task one is assigned without behaving poorly or having an attitude change that hurts others.

A Receptionist is meant to collaborate with all workers and management both male and female without causing frustrations or sidelining any worker or delaying their promotion from any informal conversations where most decisions are often made.

Appraisal and Evaluation Skills:

Appraisal and Evaluation Skills are services that allow employers to assess their employees? contributions to the organization for the period they have been working with them.

A Receptionist must creatively develop a robust evaluation process that includes the standard evaluation form, approved performance measures, guidelines for presenting feedback and disciplinary procedures to promote staff recognition and rewarding following a fair assessment and appraisal process.

Creativity:

Creativity is the skill of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality through the ability to perceive the world in new ways, find hidden patterns, make connections between unrelated phenomena and generate solutions.

A Receptionist should be able to think, then reproduce ideas and act on them to bring awareness of what was currently hidden and point to a new life that will progress the business to new heights.

Dedication to Work:

Dedication to Work is a devotion or setting aside the scheduled time that you are required to work each day consistently without fail as well as being on time and giving 100% of your efforts to doing quality work.

A Receptionist ought to be dependable and set an example for the rest of the workforce by showing up for work on time every day consistently and producing quality work while applying company policies and business strategies.

Competitiveness:

Competitiveness is the skill of being able to compete as a team or a company with other enterprises in the same line of entrepreneurship and emerging as the winner.

A Receptionist needs creativity in setting the pace for the organization on the policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of their enterprise against their competitors leading to the growth of the business and the income.

Handling Stress:

Handling Stress is the skill to balance the requirements of the job and your abilities or available resources in performing it.

A Receptionist needs to creatively learn how to schedule work according to the abilities of different individuals to ensure a balance that will not put an unsustainable level of pressure on the employees and cause them to accumulate work related stress.

Self-Discipline and Sense of Duty:

Self-Discipline and Sense of Duty is an active effort which helps in developing set ways for your thoughts, actions, and habits empowering your to stick to your decisions.

A Receptionist needs to learn the secret of fostering the development of self-discipline amongst the employees by clearly defining the expectations, staying in sync with the work related events and propagate result yielding ideas that employees suggest.

Business Etiquette:

Business Etiquette is a basic framework of rules set by companies to ensure and allow you to understand the way you should conduct yourself in the professional world.

A Receptionist must establish the tone for proper behavior in the workplace by making sure all the distinct boundaries are laid out for everyone to follow and understand the implications of defaulting.

Customer Service:

Customer Service is the ability to cater for the needs of the client by providing excellent customer service without compromise.

A Receptionist must understand that pleasing customers is directly connected to the success of the business, therefore, must create a superior customer experience culture in the company that every employee should follow in ensuring all the customers are treated as they should.

Diversity Awareness:

Diversity Awareness is the understanding that people are different and unique in their particular way and respecting their uniqueness.

A Receptionist ought to successfully identify the various types of diversity presented in his company to be able to benefit from these individual differences in the hope of improving the success of his team and encourage the team members to become aware of these qualities and use them appropriately.

Hard Skills Required to be a Receptionist

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A receptionist should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Receptionist: Hard skills list

Accounting
Administer Public Policies and Laws
Administrative Services Policies and Procedures
Advertising Promotions
Benefit Plans
Bookkeeping
Budget Management
Budgeting
Budgeting Principles
Business Contracts
Business Process Improvement
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
Cross-functional Team Leadership
Conduct Employment Interviews
Compensation Plans
Cost Analysis Theory
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Service
Delivery and Production Schedules
Design and Plan Production
Disciplinary Practices in Supervision
Economic Principles and Trends
Effective Time Management Techniques
Employee Bargaining Agreements
Employee Policies and Standards
Evaluate Degree of Financial Risk
Facility Management Techniques
Financial Management Principles and Theories
General Financial Analysis
Human Resources
Inventory Management
Labor and Employment Regulations
Marketing Strategy
Management
Manage Contracts
Manage Daily Operations
Manage Personnel and Human Resources
Management System and Guidelines
Mathematical Principles
Meet Deadlines
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office
Negotiate Labor Agreements
Negotiation Techniques as Management Tool
Office Operations and Programs
Operations Management
Operations Research
Organizational Theory
Pricing Strategy
Principles of Business Law
Principles of Office Technology in Management
Project Management
Project or Bid Proposals
Project Management Techniques
Public Administration Principles
Revenue Forecasts
Safe Work Environment
Sales
Sales Management
Six Sigma
Scheduling
Supply Chain Management
Staffing Plan
Strategic and Tactical planning
Statistical Cost Estimation Methods
Supervise Employees
System Management
Vendor Management

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