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A receptionist is an Employment taking an office or administrative support position. The work is usually performed in a waiting room such as a lobby or front office desk of an organization or business. The title receptionist is attributed to the person who is employed by an organization to receive or Greeting any visitors, patients, or clients and answer telephone calls. The term front desk is used in many hotels for an administrative department where a receptionist's duties also may include room reservations and assignment, guest registration, cashier work, credit checks, key control, and mail and message service. Such receptionists are often called front desk clerks. Receptionists cover many areas of work to assist the businesses they work for, including setting appointments, filing, record keeping, and other office tasks.
A receptionist may also assume some security guard access control functions for an organization by verifying employee identification, issuing visitor passes, and observing and reporting any unusual or suspicious persons or activities.
A receptionist is often the first business contact a person will meet at any organization. Organizations usually expect that the receptionist maintains a calm, courteous and professional demeanor at all times, regardless of the visitor's behavior. Some personal qualities that a receptionist is expected to possess in order to do the job successfully include attentiveness, a well-groomed appearance, initiative, loyalty, maturity, respect for confidentiality and discretion, a positive attitude and dependability. At times, the job may be stressful due to interaction with many different people with different types of personalities, and being expected to perform multiple tasks quickly.
While many persons working as receptionists continue in that position throughout their careers, some receptionists may advance to other administrative jobs, such as a customer service representative, dispatcher, , secretary, production assistant, personal assistant, or executive assistant. In smaller businesses, such as a doctor's or a lawyer's office, a receptionist may also be the office manager who is charged with a diversity of middle management level business operations. For example, in the hotel industry, the night-time receptionist's role is almost always combined with performing daily account consolidation and reporting, more particularly known as night auditor.
When receptionists leave the job, they often enter other career fields such as sales and marketing, public relations or other media occupations.
A few famous people were receptionists in the beginning, such as Betty Williams, a co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. A number of celebrities had worked as receptionists before they became famous, such as singer/songwriter Naomi Judd and Linda McCartney, photographer, entrepreneur and wife of Paul McCartney. Funeral held for Linda McCartney, CNN.com 20 April 1998, retrieved from Archive.org on 24 July 2012 Other famous people who began their careers as receptionists or worked in the field include civil rights activist Rosa Parks and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
Advances in touch screen and 2-way video technology is changing the way some receptionist work. New types of virtual video receptionist systems now allows for live, in-house or remote receptionists to manage office lobby areas from remote locations. These virtual receptionists not only answer phones but also greet walk-in visitors by utilizing a motion detection camera to "see" visitors as they enter the building. The remote receptionist is then displayed in a video window on a wall-mounted LCD, kiosk or desktop all-in-one computer. The video receptionist and visitors can then communicate via 2-way video, allowing the receptionist to manage one or many office lobby areas from a central location.
The advancement of office automation has eliminated some receptionists' jobs. For example, a telephone call could be answered by an automated attendant. However, a receptionist who possesses strong office/technical skills and who is also adept in courtesy, tact and diplomacy is still considered an asset to a company's business image, and is still very much in demand in the business world.
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