Office and Administrative Support · Holland code CES

Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping

Compile and keep personnel records. Record data for each employee, such as address, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports, and date of and reason for termination. May prepare reports for employment records, file employment records, or search employee files and furnish information to authorized persons.

Also called: Human Resources Administrative Assistant (HR Administrative Assistant), Human Resources Assistant (HR Assistant), Human Resources Associate (HR Associate), Personnel Clerk.

O*NET 43-4161.00

At a glance

US median annual pay: $50,610; Middle half earn $44,030 to $59,800. BLS OEWS, May 2025.
Most common education: Bachelor's Degree; 34% of workers surveyed by O*NET report this level.
Preparation needed: Job Zone 3 of 5; Medium preparation. Zone 1 is little or none; zone 5 is graduate-level.

What the work involves

The tasks workers in this occupation rate as most important, from the O*NET survey.

Process, verify, and maintain personnel related documentation, including staffing, recruitment, training, grievances, performance evaluations, classifications, and employee leaves of absence.
Record data for each employee, including such information as addresses, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports on performance, and dates of and reasons for terminations.
Interview job applicants to obtain and verify information used to screen and evaluate them.
Explain company personnel policies, benefits, and procedures to employees or job applicants.
Process and review employment applications to evaluate qualifications or eligibility of applicants.
Inform job applicants of their acceptance or rejection of employment.
Provide assistance in administering employee benefit programs and worker's compensation plans.
Select applicants meeting specified job requirements and refer them to hiring personnel.

Skills and knowledge it leans on

Skills

Reading Comprehension4.0 / 5
Active Listening4.0 / 5
Speaking3.8 / 5
Writing3.5 / 5
Critical Thinking3.4 / 5
Monitoring3.4 / 5

Knowledge areas

Personnel and Human Resources4.4 / 5
Administrative4.1 / 5
Customer and Personal Service3.7 / 5
Administration and Management3.5 / 5
English Language3.4 / 5
Computers and Electronics2.9 / 5

Importance ratings on O*NET’s 1 to 5 scale. Higher means the occupation depends on it more.

Who tends to enjoy it

How strongly this occupation draws on each of the six Holland interest types, which is the same profile the career interests test compares you against.

Realistic7
Investigative6
Artistic0
Social37
Enterprising49
Conventional100

The same work abroad

Other countries classify jobs differently, so these are the closest matches through the international ISCO-08 standard, not exact equivalents.

European occupation titles (ESCO)

human resources officer · DE Personalberater/Personalberaterin · FR directeur des ressources humaines/directrice des ressources humaines -DRH-
human resources assistant · DE Personalsachbearbeiter/Personalsachbearbeiterin · FR assistant ressources humaines/assistante ressources humaines

Closest UK occupation groups (SOC 2020)

Human resources administrative occupations (4136)60,300 employed
Human resources and industrial relations officers (3571)196,000 employed
Careers advisers and vocational guidance specialists (3572)33,700 employed

Employment is the UK Annual Population Survey for April 2025 to March 2026, all workers in the group, which can be broader than this one occupation.

Japan

Japan classifies jobs in its own way. The closest category that names the same work is “庶務・人事事務員”, which may be narrower or broader than this occupation.

Median monthly pay: ¥293,500; Middle half earn ¥240,200 to ¥378,100 a month.
Workers in the category: 787,910; Regular employees in firms of ten or more.

Scheduled monthly pay before tax, excluding overtime and bonuses, so it is not comparable to the annual figures above. Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2025, via e-Stat, under the Japanese Government Standard Terms of Use. The category match was made by hand.

Pay across Europe, for the whole group

Median annual earnings of all employees in “Clerical support workers”. This is the broad ISCO group this occupation falls in, not the occupation itself, so treat it as context for the wage level, not as a salary for this job.

Median annual earnings, Clerical support workers, by country
Country	Median pay
Belgium	€40,035
Austria	€38,296
Germany	€37,844
Netherlands	€35,854
Sweden	€33,483
Ireland	€32,144
Italy	€29,311
France	€25,943
Spain	€22,026
Portugal	€12,602
Poland	€10,250

Eurostat Structure of Earnings Survey, businesses with ten or more employees outside public administration, in euro and not adjusted for the cost of living. Reference years differ between sources: the US, Japan and Europe figures on this page come from different survey years, so compare them as rough levels, not to the euro or yen.

Exposure to AI

This occupation sits in the higher third of the 774 occupations scored, with an exposure score of +1.35. The scores are standardized across those occupations, so 0 is the average and a score of 1 is about one standard deviation above it.

Our note on reading it: the dataset links AI applications to the abilities that occupations require, so the score reflects overlap between the two. It is a comparison between occupations, not a forecast about jobs. It does not say whether exposure means tasks are replaced or workers get more done with the tools, and it says little about one employer or one role.

Source: Felten, E., Raj, M., & Seamans, R. (2021). Occupational, industry, and geographic exposure to artificial intelligence: A novel dataset and its potential uses. Strategic Management Journal, 42(12), 2195-2217. Matched to this page by 6-digit SOC code (43-4161).

Is it a fit for you?

Interest is one input, alongside ability, pay and what is hiring near you. The career interests test takes about thirteen minutes and ranks occupations by how closely their profile matches yours.

Take the career interests test