Behind every top CEO, celebrity, or entrepreneur, you will find a detail-oriented, organized, and efficient personal assistant to help with their very busy and complex lives.
The personal assistant’s primary role is to help their employer make the best use of their time by completing tasks needed for maximum productivity and a smooth-running day. The required duties vary based on the needs of each boss but typically include administrative tasks, managing calendars, and taking phone calls.
A personal assistant’s days are unique, and they could work on entirely different tasks from one day to the next, which makes for an exciting career. Skilled personal assistants are in demand and play an important role for a professional and their success.
The time a personal assistant saves their boss allows them to focus on more critical tasks that directly add to their achievements.
The Different Types of Personal Assistants
There are different types of personal assistants. Some work the typical 9-5 hours while others are required to be flexible and work evenings and weekends depending on the needs of their employer. It’s not uncommon for Personal Assistants to travel with their boss to work events, meetings, or even for pleasure. Some of the different types of personal assistants are:
Administrative Personal Assistant
This type of assistant often works in an office supporting an employee or several employees within the organization. The duties typically support the business to increase production and efficiency, including answering phones, maintaining office filing systems, managing schedules, and producing reports.
Executive Personal Assistant
This type of personal assistant assists executive-level employees or CEOs in a company. The duties could be directly related to the smooth running of the business, like answering phones that come in for the Executive and act as their gatekeeper, conduct research, prepare documents for meetings, create spreadsheets, plan events including hiring vendors, or train new staff.
Sometimes this type of assistant is asked to complete personal tasks like picking up lunch, coffee, or dry cleaning.
Personal Concierge
This type of assistant typically works for multiple individuals, more on a part-time or on-call basis to perform grocery shopping, pick up packages, or run other errands.
Celebrity Personal Assistant
A celebrity personal assistant works directly for a celebrity or high profile individual and performs various personal and business-related tasks like booking events, managing calendars, taking phone calls and acting as the gatekeeper to the celebrity, or managing the house staff.
Some assistants are required to travel with the celebrity, which has great perks like attending red carpet events, fine dining, and trying high-end wines.
Real Estate Personal Assistant
A real estate personal assistant assists a real estate agent or broker with their administrative needs, conducts market analysis, book appointments, or helps with marketing needs.
Duties and Responsibilities
The duties and responsibilities vary depending on each employer’s needs. However, here are some of the common duties of a personal assistant:
Answer and Make Calls
Busy professionals who hire personal assistants receive many business phone calls that could be extremely time-consuming for them to handle themselves, which is why they will have their assistants take all incoming calls first. The assistant will act as the gatekeeper and decide who gets through to the professional and which calls they will handle themself. Many times the assistant could handle calls altogether, which saves the professional a lot of time. The assistant will also make outbound calls to customers, book appointments, or get quotes for different projects.
Manage Calendar
One of the most critical responsibilities of a personal assistant is to manage their boss’s schedule to ensure their day-to-day runs smoothly and everything needed to maximize production gets completed. Effectively managing a busy calendar takes some strategic thinking at times when trying to fit all the important tasks and meetings on the already busy schedule. Some of the less pressing tasks may have to come off the schedule completely when more critical tasks or meetings arise.
A great way to ensure a productive and less chaotic day is to create a routine for the repetitive tasks, so everyone knows on a particular day at a certain time that exact task is always worked on. For example, every day from 9-10 AM, they review and respond to emails and messages.
Many personal assistants use tools like Calendar as an easy way to schedule meetings for their boss rather than having to make phone calls or emails back and forth to get a meeting scheduled. Using a calendar app also helps ensure no meeting gets missed, and there are never any accidental double bookings.
Personal assistants typically have one schedule for themselves and one for their boss, so they constantly manage at least two schedules. For this reason, being extremely organized and detail-oriented is crucial in the position.
Manage Travel
Celebrities, CEOs, and top Executives typically travel a lot for both work and pleasure. As a result, they rely on their assistants to handle all of the bookings for flights and accommodations and the agendas while they are there.
Duties could include booking events, making dinner reservations, or reserving ground transportation. In essence, the personal assistant acts as a travel agent to ensure their boss’s trip runs smoothly.
Organize and Plan Meetings
A personal assistant may be asked to plan a meeting, including scheduling the time with others needed to attend. They may need to plan and order food for some conferences. Some personal assistants will prepare documents for the meeting and plan the agenda as well.
They may need to sit in on the meeting and take notes for their boss or even help with the presentation. Personal Assistants also help manage projects to ensure they are running smoothly and completed on time.
Administrative
Administrative tasks could be mundane and time-consuming, which is the reason many bosses have their assistants handle them. For example, they could be required to create spreadsheets, data entry, or help manage a customer database. For this reason, a great personal assistant is extremely knowledgeable in the latest office technology and programs, including MS Office. A personal assistant may also draft correspondence for their bosses, such as emails and letters.
Personal Matters
Some personal assistants work in their boss’s home, completing administrative work and running errands, shopping, or taking their cars to get cleaned. If their boss has children, they may be asked to help transport the kids to different activities or playdates.
In addition, the personal assistant may be in charge of managing house staff or being present when workers are in the home.
Attributes of a Personal Assistant
Personal Assistants get pulled in many directions, sometimes simultaneously, which requires them to be flexible and multitask while staying focused on the task at hand with a positive attitude.
The best personal assistants are extremely organized, have excellent time management skills, attentive to detail, and self-motivated. With the many demands of the position, the assistant needs to work well under pressure while maintaining superb interpersonal skills. Exceptional personal assistants are proactive problem solvers and try to catch and handle issues before they arise.
Requirements
Entry-level personal assistants may not be required to have experience in that exact role. Still, some employers require experience in a similar position like office manager, administrative assistant, or secretary. In addition, some employers require experience in their industry.
For example, a real estate personal assistant may need some experience in the real estate industry. A professional with a busier schedule and more complicated tasks may require five year’s experience in a personal assistant role.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the duties and responsibilities can be extremely broad and vary on an individual and day-to-day basis. Typically they are tasks the employer doesn’t enjoy doing or are time-consuming but are needed for their days to run smoothly and continue their success.
There’s not a set schedule; some personal assistants work a standard 9-5 while others need to work late in the evenings and weekends when duties arise.
The most skilled and experienced personal assistant is not always the right fit for every open position. Since a personal assistant works closely with their employer daily, their personalities must work well together to foster a long-term successful business relationship. Over time a personal assistant learns their employer’s likes, dislikes, pet peeves, and personal preferences. In addition, the assistant will learn what issues they should handle and which they should bring to their boss’s attention.
If you’re looking to hire a personal assistant or want to become one, contact the Pocketbook Agency, today and we will find your perfect match!
Sources:
Calendar: Scheduling Software & Online Calendar App | Calendar.com
4 Types of Personal Assistants (2 of Which You Need To Avoid) | INC.com