14100 General office support workers

What this occupation covers

General office support workers prepare correspondence, reports, statements and other material, operate office equipment, answer telephones, verify, record and process forms and documents such as contracts and requisitions and perform general clerical duties according to established procedures. They are employed in offices throughout the public and private sectors.

Official main duties

The NOC profile lists 14 main duties for this code.

• Respond to telephone, in person or electronic enquiries or forward to appropriate person
• Prepare correspondence, reports, statements, forms, presentations, applications and other documents
• Process incoming and outgoing mail, manually or electronically
• Photocopy and collate documents for distribution, mailing and filing
• Send and receive messages and documents using fax machine or electronic mail
• Maintain inventory of office supplies, order supplies as required and arrange for servicing of office equipment
• Assist in preparing meeting agendas, attend meetings, and record minutes
• Assist with administrative procedures such as budget submissions, contracts administration and work schedules
• May sort, process and verify receipts, expenditures, forms and other documents
• May organize the flow of work for other office support workers
• May perform basic bookkeeping tasks such as preparing invoices and bank deposits.
• Scan, sort and file documents according to established guidelines
• Locate, retrieve, or make copies of documents from files as requested and maintain records of filed and removed materials
• Track documents removed from files to ensure that loan out documents are returned.

Do not copy these lines into your reference letter. The letter has to describe what you actually did, in your employer’s words. DUTYPROOF flags wording lifted from the NOC as something to review, and an officer reading a letter that mirrors the NOC reads it the same way.

What DUTYPROOF screens for

This is DUTYPROOF’s screening threshold, not IRCC’s decision. For this NOC, screening requires at least 3 of its 14 official duties to be evidenced in your own words, plus the required letter elements. IRCC asks that you performed the actions in the occupation’s lead statement and a substantial number of its main duties — so treat the duty coverage as the number that matters, not the badge.

Codes this one is confused with

The NOC profile names these itself. Choosing the wrong code of a look-alike pair is the most common way genuine work experience fails to establish eligibility.

• 14200 Accounting and related clerks
• 13110 Administrative assistants
• 13100 Administrative officers
• 14103 Court clerks and related court services occupations
• 14111 Data entry clerks
• 14102 Personnel clerks
• 14101 Receptionists
• 12112 Records management technicians
• 12010 Supervisors, general office and administrative support workers

Excluded from this code

• Accounting and related clerks (See 14200 Accounting and related clerks)
• Administrative assistants (See 13110 Administrative assistants)
• Administrative officers (See 13100 Administrative officers)
• Court clerks and related court services occupations (See 14103 Court clerks and related court services occupations)
• Data entry clerks (See 14111 Data entry clerks)
• Personnel clerks (See 14102 Personnel clerks)
• Receptionists (See 14101 Receptionists)
• Records management technicians (See 12112 Records management technicians)
• Supervisors, general office and administrative support workers (See 12010 Supervisors, general office and administrative support workers)

Job titles filed under this code

A title on this list does not by itself put your experience in this code — the duties in your letter decide that.

address forms clerk · administrative clerk - Canadian Armed Forces · administrative clerk · aircraft records clerk · auction clerk · bill sorter · broadcast clerk · bus terminal clerk · Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) operator · card filer · classification clerk · clerical assistant · clerk-stenographer · correspondence filing clerk · course coordinator · credit card authorization clerk · criminal records clerk · dietetics office clerk - hospital · documents clerk · drawings filing clerk · file and classification clerk · file clerk · filing clerk · film filing clerk

Employment requirements

• Completion of secondary school is usually required.
• Completion of secondary school or college business or commercial courses is usually required.