What are a Personal Assistant’s Key Duties and Responsibilities?
Feb 2, 2023 • 6 min read
A personal assistant is someone who works closely with you to help run your day-to-day life. Depending on what type of job you’re hiring for, there could be many different tasks involved. For example, if you hire a virtual assistant, she might take care of things like scheduling appointments, managing social media accounts, booking travel arrangements, taking phone calls, and handling emails. If you hire a secretary, she’ll probably do everything from typing up letters to answering phones and making copies. Executive assistants also have a wide range of skills and expertise including high-level communication skills, excellent time management, good interpersonal skills, and impressive organizational skills.
There are three main types of virtual assistants: full-time, part-time, and freelance. Full-timers typically work 40 hours per week, while freelancers generally work around 30 hours per week. Part-timers tend to make somewhere in the middle — anywhere from 20 to 35 hours per week.
The most common way to find a virtual assistant is through word of mouth. You can ask friends, family members, colleagues, or anyone else you know who needs one. Another option is to look online. There are plenty of sites where people post ads looking for personal assistants. Some of these sites include Upwork, PeoplePerHour, and Fiverr or you can choose to hire through a reliable hiring platform like DigiWorks where all the talent is pre-vetted, screened, and assessed.
You’ll learn:
- What is a personal assistant, and what does a personal assistant do?
- What are the job duties of a personal assistant?
- What can a personal assistant do for your business?
- How to hire the right personal assistant
Ready to build your remote team?
Use the DigiWorks platform to hire, manage, and pay remote talent from all over the world.
What is a personal assistant, and what does a personal assistant do?
A personal assistant is someone who helps you organize your life and can pretty much take over all administrative duties for you. They are there to make sure everything goes smoothly. They take care of things like scheduling meetings, booking travel arrangements, finding information, managing tasks, and even making calls on your behalf and basically make your daily living a lot more efficient and organized.
Personal assistants work for individuals, not companies. They don’t work for groups; they work for one person. Personal assistants usually work full-time, although some freelancers offer part-time assistance.
What are the job duties of a personal assistant?
Personal assistants play an important role at the executive level. They assist them with all facets of their administrative tasks and personal tasks including bookings, travel, car rentals, and restaurant reservations.
Some companies even require personal assistants to take notes during meetings. Here are some examples of what a personal secretary does:
• Booking hotel rooms
• Making airline reservations
• Managing corporate credit cards
• Taking meeting minutes
• Scheduling appointments
• Calendar management
• Cold calling external clients
• Basic accounting tasks
• Clerical tasks
• Bookkeeping tasks
• Scheduling of meetings
• Managing your email programs
• Making direct phone calls
Personal assistant job roles and responsibilities
The role of a personal assistant is one of the most sought-after jobs in the world today. With the rise of technology, many companies are now looking for people to help them manage their day-to-day tasks as well as some slightly more complicated tasks. There are a wide variety of personal assistant positions available, including administrative assistants, customer support specialists, event planners, office managers, and even project managers. These positions vary in terms of what you do daily and how much responsibility you have. Some assistants perform simple duties like scheduling meetings, while others handle multiple projects simultaneously.
In addition to being responsible for managing a team, personal assistants often take care of clients directly. This could include handling client calls, meeting requests, and organizing events. Depending on your position, it may be necessary to travel frequently to different locations.
Below are some of the most common requirements or skills most personal assistants are required to have:
- Time management skills
- Communications skills
- Customer service skills
- Organizational skills so you can manage busy calendars with ease
- Verbal communication skills as you might be required to chat to clients via phone calls
- Must be able to use appointment scheduling software
What can a personal assistant do for your business?
A personal assistant helps businesses grow faster by taking charge of administrative tasks like scheduling meetings or managing email communication. They are able to prioritize work based on your business objectives. A personal assistant will free up you to focus on strategic decisions and growth opportunities.
How to hire the right personal assistant
Interviewing is key to finding a great candidate for your team. While it might seem like a simple task, there are many things to consider when hiring someone to assist you. Here are some tips to make sure you find the best possible candidate.
1. Understand What You Want
First off, you must understand exactly what you’re looking for in a personal assistant. Do you need one to handle scheduling, book travel arrangements, manage your calendar, organize files, etc.? Or do you simply need someone to run errands for you? Once you’ve answered those questions, you can start narrowing down your list of candidates.
2. Get Recommendations
Ask friends, family members, coworkers and anyone else you trust for recommendations. They may even recommend people they personally use. If you don’t have any leads, check out online resources such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. There are several companies dedicated to helping job seekers find employment opportunities, including Indeed and SimplyHired.
3. Set Up Screenings
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential candidates, set up interviews. This could mean meeting face-to-face, conducting phone interviews or sending emails. Regardless of the method, make sure you interview each candidate thoroughly. Ask open-ended questions and listen carefully to their responses.
4. Make use of a hiring platform
If you’re looking for a more affordable and sustainable option you might consider making use of a hiring platform like DigiWorks. Virtual assistant companies or platforms like DigiWorks are amazing as they not only match you with pre-vetted and assessed admin assistants that can take care of all your business needs but they will also handle all onboarding and payroll needs as well. Since DigiWorks’ talent are from emerging countries, the rates are much lower than the US minimum wage and you don’t have to deal with the risk of dealing with scammers or incompetent freelancers.
Ready to build your remote team?
Use the DigiWorks platform to hire, manage, and pay remote talent from all over the world.
Conclusion
Personal assistants are becoming increasingly popular because of how much they can offer business owners. they can cover pretty much any of your repetitive daily tasks and are significantly cheaper than taking on a new full-time on-site employee.
There are plenty of companies offering virtual assistance services with varying prices and services. If you’re not sure where to get started, a great place to start is by asking questions and checking out websites and different platforms like DigiWorks. Testimonials are a great way to figure out if that platform is the right one for you!
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About DigiWorks
DigiWorks is an easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and start ups hire amazing remote talent from around the world. DigiWorks offers a way for you to hire, manage and pay people from all countries. If you find an amazing virtual assistant from Philippines, a content writer from Nigeria, or operations manager from South Africa – manage and pay your entire team from one platform with no hassle.
If you’re looking for a more affordable and sustainable option you might consider making use of a hiring platform like DigiWorks. Virtual assistant companies or platforms like DigiWorks are amazing as they not only match you with pre-vetted and assessed remote workers that can take care of all your business needs but they will also handle all onboarding and payroll needs as well.