INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, GRADE 12

1. Job Knowledge

Mr/Ms ___________if you happen to be appointed as a school secretary at our school, what
will be your core duties?

• Receiving/greeting customers/guests
• Receiving phone calls
• Managing school mails (receiving and sending letters)
• Making appointments for the principal and other senior staff members
• Filling documents
• Distributing agenda and recording minutes of meetings
• Typing document using good language and grammar skills
• Maintaining statistic report
• Creating and maintaining accurate data bases
• Maintaining confidentiality
• Managing office supplies, stock
• Making copies
• Sending faxes and emails
•
•
2. Supervision

Shortage of ink, toner or papers often negatively affects the printing of Examinations and
test in school, how will you prevent this?

3. Decision Making

One of the duties of the school secretary is to type the test papers. One day a certain teacher
complained to the principal that you have failed to type his/her test paper on time and
his/her learners failed to write the test on a schedule day. What measures are you going to
put in place in order to avoid future complain of the kind?

• Try to keep the relationship intact

• Explain politely why the delay was caused
• Apologize and assure that it will be done immediately
• And to avoid such situation, I will inform the teacher about the workload in advance
4. problem solving

One of the duties of the school secretary at school is to collect school development fund.
Oneday a parent came to school claiming that his/her child paid school fees but there is no
evidence, what will you do?

5. Interpersonal Relations

You have realized that one teacher usually approaches you in an impolite way and being
rude to you, e.g by giving you due date you are unable to meet. What will you do?
• Communicate on the reason for late submission
• Apply the correction e.g refer teacher to the internal policy
• Refer the the readership channel

6. Career goals

Apart from being a school secretary at___________, what other improvements will you
bring at school?

7. A duplication machine at school can get broken if it is used by many people. The principal
assigned you to take proper control of this machine. How are you going to control the use
of this machine?

8. teacher X at your school decided not to talk to you with a reason that you don’t know.
What will you do to make teacher X talk to you?
9. Explain the filling system you will put I place /make use of in your new office

10. What skills or professional qualities do you posses that makes you the most suitable
candidate for this post?

• Communication skills
• Organizational skills
• Time management skills
• Dependability and Reliability
• Confidentiality
• Customer service orientation
• Good interpersonal skills
• Experience
• .
• .
• .

11. A caller have been avoided by your supervisor with a reason which you don’t know, and
kept on calling insisting to talk to him/her, how will you handle this caller?

•
• .

12. one day one of your colleagues came to you forcing you to tell him/her about
confidential information. What will you tell him or her?
13. how will you work with your core workers?

14. An intent student came at your school to do his/her practice how will you help and work
with this student?

15.What will you do if you have an appointment with a doctor and the same day you have
an urgent meeting with the Director?

16. In your opinion why filling is important at any institution?

17. how do you understand about social security?

18.what is your understanding on the following terms:

a). Confidentiality
= keep sensitive information secret not revealing at anyone

b). Customer care

=Effectiveness assistance to the clients

Keeping the interpersonal relation intact

C) Accountability

19. do you prefer to work alone or as a team?

20. Three methods of communication that a secretary may use

21. where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

22. your computer is broken and you have to type a document, what are you going to do?
23. Ambunda cs needs a competent Administrative officer who will record the examination
statistics, schedules, year plan, minutes and finances just to mention a few. Based on your
experiences, which program application are you going to use and how,in order to perform
your duty diligently?

• Microsoft excel, word, power point, publisher, database

• Have to explain/elaborate more on usage of each

24. Ambunda CS does not have a cleaner, one day your supervisor requests you to clean the
staff room. How will you react to the reguest?
• Accept and respect the emergience duties assigned
• Perform any duty assigned by supervisor
• Carry out relevant duties voluntarily

25.MR/Ms______________if you happen to have a supervisor who bring very urgent

jobs/work regularly with little notice, at least very few minutes before knocking off time,
what will you do?
• Accept and respect authority
• Sacrifice
• Work Extra time
• Ask assistance from colleague

26. Mr/Ms_______________tell the panel how would you handle people with different
backgrounds and behaviours at your new working environment?

• Being patient, polite and good listener

• Learn how to handle different situations and behaviors
• Know how to communicate(good communication skills)
• Be honest and respect individuality
• Be a problem solver and helpful in uniting people
 • Report and refer any matters to high authority

27. What are your strengths and weakinesses and how do you plan them for good
performance of Ambunda CS?

Under strengths
• Being flexible
• Being proud of doing all works
• Being happy doing all sort of work assigned
• Work as team
• Offering assistance and giving new ideas
• Communication

Under weaknesses
• Impatient:

28. What are your future plans?

For the school

• Time management
• Team work/promote team work/be a team player
• Neatness of work
• Proper book keeping/filling management
• Help school with digital time tabling
• Assist teachers who are struggling with computer literacy
• Help in managing learners discipline
• Help to find strategies on improving learners performance
• Assist in ensuring that the school environment is clean and conducive
Self
I am planning to further my study and become one of the senior Administrative officer in
ministry of education.

29. a parent came to school with an urgent matter h/she want to talk to the school principal,
unfortunately the principal has an urgent meeting with the inspector, how will you handle
the situation?

• Try to keep the relationship firmly

• Politely explain to the parent about the urgent meeting the principal is in
• Explain the management committee within the school and if h/she is comfortable
you can refer him/her to one of the management committee to express his/her
matter, and promise that the principal will be given feedback as soon as he/she is
done with the meeting
30. your are a school secretary and you were part of the interview held at school, one of
the candidate happen to call you to tell him/her who was the successful candidate, how will
you handle this?

• One of the qualities an administrative officer posses is confidentiality, I will treat the
outcomes as confidential, try to explain to the candidate how the code of conduct
clearly stating to public servants, I will make him/her understand that I don’t have such
authority and the responsible people will do their part on announcing who the
successful candidate is.

31. How do you understand team work, and how will you enhance it at your work place.

32. Sometimes you might be criticized by our supervisor or other for mistakes you did. How
do you react to criticism in your capacity?

• Criticism does not bother me at all, I see criticism as a learning tool that can improve
my work performance and I see it as part of my personal development.

33. how would you ensure that the supervision is taking place from a secretarial desk

• Monitoring of teachers attendance register

• Recording office equipments, resources and diaries
• Controlling movements of resources

34. Clerical services is one of the core duties of a school secretary, describe the job
description of a school secretary and tell the panel how you intend to facilitate
administration work at schools that you may enable teachers and learners to do their work
effectively.

35. Economizing is important for resources to last longer, convince this panel what you will
do to sustain the school resources?
36. As a school secretary you are going to work with school money, if Mr X comes to your
office to borrow you money and return it at the end of the month, how will you handle such
situation?

37. if you happen to be appointed to this post, what are your plans to make sure that the
school records and information are upto date and assessable?

38. if your supervisor asked you to work overtime to help him/her to complete an
urgent issue, how will you react to this request though you are not going to be
rewarded?