Company Secretary, Personal Assistant, Secretary (General): three unrelated jobs, one confusing set of titles

Migratio Editorial · Last updated 5 September 2026

TL;DR: Company Secretary, Personal Assistant and Secretary (General) look like three levels of the same office career. VETASSESS and ANZSCO treat them as three separate occupations that explicitly exclude each other. Company Secretary is statutory board-governance work in ANZSCO's Professionals major group, requiring a Bachelor-level qualification and reaching the employer-sponsored subclass 482 and 186. Personal Assistant and Secretary (General) sit in a different major group entirely, at Diploma level, and reach only the regional subclass 494 — and VETASSESS will not accept either one's employment evidence against the other.

If your job title is somewhere in the secretary-to-PA-to-company-secretary range, the natural assumption is that these are three rungs of one ladder — start as a secretary, become a personal assistant, eventually make company secretary. VETASSESS's own occupation pages say the opposite, in writing, on all three pages: none of the three will accept employment built up under either of the other two titles. They are not graded versions of one job. They are three separate ANZSCO occupations, assessed against three different sets of highly relevant fields of study, reaching two very different sets of visas. Getting the code wrong here does not lower your score — it discards the evidence outright, because VETASSESS's exclusion lists name the other titles by code number, not by vague description.

Company Secretary is a board-governance role, not a senior secretary

VETASSESS's own page states it plainly: “Occupations not considered under this ANZSCO code: Secretary (General) Legal Secretary Personal Assistant Corporate Treasurer.” Company Secretary is a VETASSESS Group B occupation, requiring a qualification comparable to an Australian Qualifications Framework Bachelor degree or higher — the only Group B code among the fourteen occupations in this family, where the rest sit at Diploma or Certificate III. Its highly relevant fields of study are corporate governance, risk management, public administration, law and business — a list that shares no overlap with either Personal Assistant's or Secretary (General)'s fields.

ANZSCO backs this up at a structural level, not just VETASSESS's own: Company Secretary sits in ANZSCO's Professionals major group, in unit group 2212 alongside External Auditor and Internal Auditor, while Secretary (General) and Personal Assistant sit in the Clerical and Administrative Workers major group entirely. That is a different skill tier by ANZSCO's own architecture, not a VETASSESS house rule. Because VETASSESS also treats it as a managerial occupation, applicants must submit an organisational chart, or a statutory declaration if none can be obtained, showing where the role sits in the business — a requirement neither Personal Assistant nor Secretary (General) carries.

The most demanding pathway still needs matching employment, not just the qualification

VETASSESS runs all fourteen occupations in this family through the same four-pathway skeleton: a highly relevant qualification plus one year of highly relevant employment in the last five years satisfies Pathway 1, while a less relevant qualification trades up to more required employment years on Pathways 2 to 4. For Company Secretary, Pathway 4 needs “at least six years of employment at an appropriate skill level that includes at least one year of highly relevant employment within the last five years before applying” — the qualification alone, however senior it sounds, is never enough on its own.

A real, dated example of this trap surfaced on britishexpats.com in 2006. A poster explained: “I have a degree/professional qualification as a Company Secretary but I work as an Investment Banker/Corporate Finance Manager. I plan to choose Company Secretary (50 points) as the Nominated Occupation.” A forum reply told them directly: “You need to have the relevent work experience prior to lodging application.” The points system referenced is obsolete, but the underlying principle is exactly what VETASSESS's pathway structure still enforces two decades later — a qualification, on its own, satisfies no pathway without matching employment behind it.

Personal Assistant and Secretary (General) sit in different ANZSCO unit groups and exclude each other by code

It is not just Company Secretary that stands apart. ANZSCO's minor group 521, Personal Assistants and Secretaries, splits into two separate unit groups: 5211 Personal Assistants and 5212 Secretaries. Personal Assistant (521111) and Secretary (General) (521211) are not two seniority levels of one code — they are two different unit groups sharing a minor-group umbrella, and each occupation's VETASSESS page names the other as excluded.

Personal Assistant's page states: “Occupations not considered under this ANZSCO code: Secretary (General) (ANZSCO Code 521211) Legal Secretary (ANZSCO Code 521212) Office Manager (ANZSCO Code 512111) Receptionists (ANZSCO Unit Group 5421).” Secretary (General)'s page returns the exclusion: “Occupations not considered under this ANZSCO code: Personal Assistant (ANZSCO Code 521111) Legal Secretary (ANZSCO Code 521212) Office Manager (ANZSCO Code 512111) Receptionist (ANZSCO Unit Group 5421) Medical Secretary.” Both occupations sit at VETASSESS Group C, requiring an AQF Diploma or higher — genuinely equal in qualification tier, which makes the exclusion easy to miss on paper.

The highly relevant fields overlap almost completely — which is exactly why the mix-up happens

Personal Assistant's highly relevant fields of study are business administration and management. Secretary (General)'s are business administration, management and office management — one field wider, but built on the same foundation. Two occupations with near-identical qualification fields and an identical Diploma-level bar, sitting under one shared minor group, look on paper like they should accept each other's evidence. VETASSESS's exclusion lists say the opposite in both directions, and there is no fallback argument based on how closely related the fields sound.

Secretary (General)'s unit group carries one more exclusion worth knowing on its own: “Medical secretaries are excluded from this unit group. Medical secretaries are included in unit group 5421 Receptionists, in occupation 542114 Medical Receptionist.” Anyone working as a secretary inside a hospital or medical clinic is, by ANZSCO's own rule, assessed under neither Personal Assistant nor Secretary (General) — that title routes to a Receptionist-family occupation instead, a genuinely different code with its own separate evidence requirements.

The visa reach is what actually separates the three, once the titles are sorted out

This is where getting the code right matters beyond the assessment outcome. Company Secretary carries the Short-term Skilled Occupations List and the Core Skills Occupation List, reaching subclass 186, 190, 407, 482, 491 and 494 — including the employer-sponsored 482 and 186 lane, one of only three occupations in this fourteen-code family to reach it. Personal Assistant and Secretary (General) both sit on the Regional Occupation List alone, reaching subclass 494 only — no employer sponsorship, no points-tested independent visa, regardless of how senior the role or how many years behind it.

So the practical stakes are real on both sides of this confusion. Someone with genuine board-governance experience who under-nominates as Secretary (General) out of caution loses access to 482 and 186 sponsorship they could otherwise reach. Someone with PA or general-secretarial experience who over-reaches for Company Secretary because it sounds like a natural next step will find their employment evidence explicitly excluded rather than merely scored lower.

Frequently asked questions

Is Company Secretary just a more senior version of Personal Assistant or Secretary (General)?

No. VETASSESS's own Company Secretary page names Secretary (General), Legal Secretary, Personal Assistant and Corporate Treasurer as occupations it will not consider under that code. ANZSCO places Company Secretary in its Professionals major group and the other two in the Clerical and Administrative Workers major group — a different classification tier, not a seniority difference within one job.

Can Personal Assistant experience count toward a Secretary (General) nomination, or the other way around?

No. Both occupations' VETASSESS pages name each other in their exclusion lists by ANZSCO code number, even though they share an almost identical highly-relevant-field-of-study list and sit at the same Group C, Diploma-level qualification tier. Employment built up under one title does not carry across to a nomination under the other.

Which of the three reaches employer sponsorship on subclass 482 or 186?

Only Company Secretary. It carries the Short-term Skilled Occupations List and the Core Skills Occupation List, reaching subclass 186, 190, 407, 482, 491 and 494. Personal Assistant and Secretary (General) sit on the Regional Occupation List alone, capped at subclass 494.

What happens if I'm a medical secretary and want to nominate Secretary (General)?

ANZSCO's own rule for unit group 5212 Secretaries excludes medical secretaries outright, routing that role instead to unit group 5421 Receptionists as occupation 542114 Medical Receptionist. A medical secretary should check that occupation's requirements rather than Secretary (General)'s.

What qualification level does Company Secretary need compared with Personal Assistant or Secretary (General)?

Company Secretary is a VETASSESS Group B occupation, needing a qualification comparable to an AQF Bachelor degree or higher. Personal Assistant and Secretary (General) are both Group C, needing an AQF Diploma or higher — a full tier below Company Secretary's requirement.

Compare MARA-registered migration agents — free