If I am currently a pharmacy technician, am I "overqualified" to be medical secretary?
Asked by pretty + poisonous
I am looking for another job and I want to apply for one as a secretary at the local hospital. The only requirements are HS Diploma (which I have) and that the person has excellent communication skills. Should I apply? I think I would LOVE that job. It is basically answering phones and scheduling appointments.

Best Answer:
You may or may not be overqualified. Only the receptionist answers phones and schedules appointments. The medical secretary has to do all the word processing, medical records preparation and filing, and may do some accounting, payment processing, and more. How are your computer skills? Which programs? Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook (or other email), scheduling software, what else? How's your spelling? Writing/typing correspondence? It is entirely possible that you are so underqualified that you cannot get a job. Depends on who wants what and what you have to offer!

"Overqualified" is a myth...especially in today's job market. The only issue that a person with skills, training and/or experience that exceed the requirements of a given job might encounter is pay: if a person is qualified for a $40,000/year teaching job, will they be OK with a $25,000/year day care job? Employers would love to have the additional capabilities of the more qualified candidate, but they probably won't be prepared to pay extra for them. If there's job for which you're qualified (let along more than qualified) and you're interested in it, by all means apply. Just be realistic regarding your wage expectations.
Answered by edthespartan

There is no such thing as over qualified nowadays. You accept jobs that is available. There are no jobs out there to really pick. I did valet parking for a Hotel. and I have a Medical license ( X-ray ) which is no job here in FL. I made a lot of money doing Valet tho. u get tips and thats cash.
Answered by Paulo R

I don't think that you would be overqualified for this position, but you may not have all of the other requirements that are required for this position. The things that you would need to consider for this job, are the following: 1) What type of training do you have with computer programs such as MS Office applications (Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, Visio) etc.? Do you have experience with Word Perfect as well? 2) What is your bookkeeping experience like for instance with accounts receivable and payable? Do you have experience or training in simply accounting or medical billing programs? 3) Have you taken training in transcription? Many secretarial jobs i.e. medical secretaries require that you have had exposure, or have done transcription in the past. 4) What is your scheduling experience like? Although your not responsible for scheduling appointments for patients, you're responsible for scheduling executive schedules, meetings, conferences, boardrooms etc. 5) How are you with multitasking and with prioritizing as well as handling stress and pressure? A lot of times these jobs involve quite a bit of this, and you have to be able to do this in a timely manner so that you're able to get through all of the different tasks that are given to you in a timely manner. I hope that this helps you, and feel free to apply for this position, but unless you have had administrative experience in other jobs, I don't think that this would be a great entry level or step up job. If you have no administrative experience, you should attempt to do something like an office assistant, clerk-typist, or general file clerk to begin with. Secretaries are similar to that of executive assistants where they want you to know pretty much everything, and they will just sort of "throw you into the scene" and you have to be able to pick yourself up, and od the tasks at hand. I hope that this has helped you, and good luck with being able to get this job!:) My fingers are crossed for you.
Answered by mtwaites