If you’re a CEO, your work and personal life is probably largely managed by your executive assistant. Even if you’re a small business owner or a start-up founder, you’re probably thinking how easy, or at least much less hectic, your life would be if you had an assistant.
Your personal or executive assistant can manage your calendar, emails, personal errands, and practically do everything—short of your actual job—for you. She’s the person you rely on to keep your work and schedule sane. She’s the point of contact everyone talks to before actually meeting you. That is, if you hire a good assistant.
The Hiring and Retention Pitfalls Executives Face when Looking for an Assistant
Much of your productivity and stress levels depend on your assistant’s competence, yet many executives and business owners don’t invest enough time in choosing one. That’s a big mistake.
If you’re not prepared, you’ll encounter several hiring challenges on your way to finding an assistant. You might even give up prematurely and just hire someone good enough in terms of skills, but not really in-sync with your working style or personality.
You can easily avoid those hiring challenges if you have the right frame of mind. So before posting that wanted job ad, ask yourself these questions first:
Questions Every CEO and Manager Should Ask Before Looking for an Assistant
- What can You Learn from Your Soon to be Ex-Assistant?
If you already have an assistant, she is a great resource for your next hire. Ask her for suggestions on the skills and characteristics you should look for when hiring. After all, this person has worked with you for some time, so she should have a pretty good idea of what you need.
If your current or past assistant isn’t any good, then this line of questioning won’t work. Instead, ask yourself what skills that assistant lacked, or characteristics that might have prevented her from doing the job well. For instance, does your assistant lack attention to details? Does she ask too many questions, whereas you’d prefer if she took the initiative to figure things out on her own?
- What’s Your Communication Style?
If you’re a grunt and nod type of boss, you won’t work well with an assistant who talks just as much (or little) as you do.
Honestly evaluate your communication style. Are you obsessive compulsive, preferring to write down detailed instructions so things are done exactly as you envisioned? Or do you prefer to give an end result or expected outcome and then let your assistant figure out the rest?
More importantly, do you want an honest assistant who’s not afraid to speak her mind, or do you hate to be challenged? If you don’t want to end up ruining your company’s hiring and retention rate because you fired your new assistant after 2 weeks of starting, give this question some serious thought.
Bruised egos don’t bode well for boss-assistant work dynamics.
- How Much Time will it Take to Onboard Her?
As far as hiring challenges go, this isn’t one of them. But it’s still worth mentioning because if you don’t do this onboarding right, you might as well start looking for another assistant.
If this person is your first assistant, you might have to train her yourself. But if you’ve had an assistant before, then you can have her train the new-hire before she leaves.
Before your assistant’s first day of work, compile a list of tasks you’d like her to do, like answering calls or managing emails. These tasks sound deceptively easy, but I know from experience that every person has a preferred way of doing things, or at least certain way of organizing their work.
If you can, document these pet peeves and preferences for each task so you don’t end up feeling disappointed when your new assistant doesn’t follow them. Remember, you hired an assistant, not a mind reader.
Make Sure You Get The Right Person in the Right Position
This guide will help you identify the skills and experience you need (beyond the basics) so that you can hire the person who best fits your organization.
