Receptionists are one of the largest occupational groups in the country, with some 1.1 million people doing the job. I think we all know what they do, don’t we? Meet people as they enter an office or place of work, deal with customer queries, route telephone calls and so on? Also, as the BLS tells us the job is expected grow more swiflty than most others in the years to come. This is largely to do with the fact that the shift from manufacturing (where there are few receptionists) to service (where there are many) employment is expected to continue.

That description of the job makes it fairly easy to place, using our EQSQ personality tests, those who would be good at the job. Those with the female brain type, strong empathic skills. Just like most jobs that entail dealing with the general public really.

There’s no specific training for the job, at least not more than a high school diploma and general literacy and computer skills: certainly no college degree is required. However, over and above that cheerful and bubbly character that helps, and the empathic skills from the personality tests, there is a good argument that if you want to have your pick of the jobs (and to possibly progress as well) then maybe a secretarial course, perhaps even a junior college degree in office management would be useful. Remember, the more qualified you are, the better the choice you will have about where you work.