Celebrity has its perks, like getting special tables at fine restaurants, VIP treatment, and free valet parking. Being able to afford luxurious homes and cars and expensive clothes is another great benefit.
Many celebrities run very busy schedules from appointments, photoshoots, events, and endorsement obligations to keep their celebrity status and earn additional income. With a large home and many moving parts in their life, most celebrities hire staff to help them with their day-to-day needs.
Hiring a Professional Staff
As a celebrity, hiring a professional to work for you is a big decision. You are bringing in a stranger to work closely with you and in your family home. With a large house to care for and many moving parts to your daily schedule, you need help.
It can be overwhelming to start the process if you don’t know where to begin. Many companies offer help with filling open positions, including domestic jobs. Some provide a more hands-off approach where the leg work is handled for you, including the job posting, interviews, background screenings, and reference checks.
Others have a more hands-on process where you use their online portal to post your open positions and completely handle the applicants and hiring process yourself.
Staffing Agencies for Celebrities
Using a professional celebrity staffing agency has many benefits, including finding qualified and experienced candidates quickly. A reputable agency has a clear understanding of the hiring process and what to look for when matching a candidate with a client. Essentially, they save you time and stress and simply hand you the perfect employee to get started working right away.
Hiring the right individual that is trustworthy, honest, and hard-working can be a challenge to find. It may mean reviewing hundreds of applications, conducting many interviews, background screenings, and reference checks. Also, finding a qualified candidate that you get along with can be difficult.
Top Celebrity Staffing Positions
Personal Assistant
A personal assistant is typically the first position sought after. A personal assistant plays an extremely important role in your life. They will be your go-to person for many of your day-to-day tasks, handling everything from your schedule, booking appointments, running errands, picking up dry cleaning, managing your emails, and sometimes your social media. They will act as your gatekeeper taking phone calls on your behalf and control who gets access to you.
Since you will work closely every day with your personal assistant, you must find one with the right attitude. Your personal assistant should show a high level of professionalism and privacy.
Chauffeur
Hiring a chauffeur to do the driving is very common with celebrities. You will be able to sit in the backseat and relax or handle business while someone is driving you around. Traveling for both business and pleasure, you will go to places or cities that you are not familiar with and potentially get lost, which can be stressful and cause you to be late.
Some may have no parking options, which may require you to park far away and walk to the location. For these reasons, a chauffeur is a must. They will save you a lot of time and stress.
Housekeeper
Your housekeeper will maintain the cleanliness and order of your home. They will handle many duties, including cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, running errands, and overseeing other workers.
Since your housekeeper will be working with your personal belongings, it’s crucial you hire one that is extremely honest with a high level of integrity.
Finding the Right Person
Before you start finding the perfect individual, it’s important to outline your exact needs. You’ll want to have a complete job description written out, including all of the required duties, hours, pay, time off, holiday hours, and employee bonuses. If driving is necessary for the role, you’ll want to list whose vehicle will be used and responsible for the insurance. As a celebrity or well-known individual, keeping your name private is a good practice until you find the right professional you want to hire.
A reputable staffing agency will help you with finding and hiring the right individual to fill your position. The agency will have a dedicated recruiter that will be your helping hand every step of the process including conducting the initial interviews, background screenings, and reference checks to ensure the candidates they present to you show a high level of integrity and professionalism. When the agency pre-screens individuals you don’t waste your time interviewing a lot of unqualified people, so your time is only spent on candidates that pass the initial screening process.
Questions to Ask a Candidate in an Interview
Ask your candidate these questions.
Can You Tell Me About Yourself?
Your assistant will be working closely with you every day, so it’s critical you get along well. What you will be looking for with their answer are their interests, attitudes, and experiences that may give you an insight into their personality and how well you would get along.
You also will want to look for keywords like honest, ethical, and integrity since the position typically requires working in your home and access to private information so you want to ensure the individual is trustworthy and keeps your celebrity status private.
What Are Your Greatest Strengths?
As a celebrity with a busy schedule and many moving parts to your day-to-day life, you need an extremely organized, reliable, and punctual individual to help your days run as smoothly as possible.
Other key strengths you should be looking for in your staff are working well under pressure and being flexible to help keep a calm working order even when there is an unexpected change in the schedule or in a time crunch.
Your staff’s job essentially is to make your life easier and organized, so finding an individual with these strengths will save you time and stress so you could focus on more pressing things.
What Are Your Biggest Weaknesses?
Some have a hard time answering this question, but it’s important to find out their answers. Everybody has weaknesses, but it’s vital their quality of work isn’t affected by their weakness. If your landscaper’s biggest weakness is communication, it’s not that big of a deal as their work doesn’t require a lot of communicating.
Why Do You Want This Position?
This question may throw the candidate off a bit, but it’s essential to know why they want the position to ensure it’s not only because you are a celebrity and want to be in the spotlight or get close to you. An individual that is wanting the position for the right reasons may say something about them looking for a stable career they can learn and grow in.
What Was the Reason You Left Your Last Job?
Asking this question may give you some insight into their work ethic or attitude. An individual that talks negatively about their past employer or manager may be concerning as they might talk bad about you down the road.
If they left their last job because they couldn’t find daycare for their children or their car kept breaking down so they were habitually late or unable to show up, you want to know that since they potentially won’t be very reliable.
Conclusion
Celebrity staffing is a complex process. There are many options to help you with your staffing needs, but you may have to interview several applicants before finding the perfect one.
Ensuring you hire an individual that is trustworthy, hard-working, reliable, and you get along with is crucial for the long-term success of your business relationship.
You can hire a staffing agency to fill your open positions. Working with an agency means they’ll handle the initial interviews to find skilled professional candidates that fit your personality. When your staffing agency brings you, qualified candidates, for you to interview, ask the right questions so you could get a better understanding of the individual’s character, attitude, and work ethic.
Qualified applicants will go through an extensive screening process, including background and reference checks. This process will help ensure you are hiring an honest individual you can trust in your home and personal life. Your staff member should be able to keep your celebrity status discrete for your privacy and safety.
If you choose a more hands-on approach, ensure you complete a thorough check on their background, including checking their social media and verify references. Doing this will save you from a potentially unpleasant situation in the future of your working relationship with your employee.
If you are a celebrity or working for one, looking for staff to fill your open positions, and want assistance from an experienced staffing professional, contact the Pocketbook Agency.
Sources:
The Best Background Check Sites for 2021 | Investopedia