Personal Assistant

Showing posts with label Salary. Show all posts

What are the Usual Personal Assistant Jobs and Where to Find One?

If you are looking for personal assistant jobs, you need to make sure that the job is really for you before you commit yourself to anyone who will get your services. Did you know that with the advent of the Internet, such jobs can be turned into a home based biz? With only a few hours of your time, you can already earn from being an assistant of someone from the other side of the globe.

If you are going to do this on a home based set up, these are the usual tasks that your employer may ask you to do.

• Hotel and airline reservation.

• Billing concerns and complaints

• Scheduling of meetings and other important events

• Planning of family gathering or vacations

• Reminders of important tasks and dates

• Organization of appointments

• Sending out direct mailing pieces or seasonal cards to clients

• Researching of important topics needed by the superior

• Inquiries regarding different information as required by the employer

Are you up for the challenge? The abovementioned are the usual tasks that you may be assigned as a Virtual PA or even on an office based set up. You need not worry about other tasks like the house chores of your boss. The most likely personal tasks that you may be asked to do are the following.

• Manage the office budget and household finances.

• Hiring of people that may be needed to the business and even the household staff.

• Accompanying your boss, their loved ones and relatives to important appointments like at the doctor’s office, in buying gifts and other personal errands.

• Go to the person or contact the person your boss should be meeting with if they would be late or can no longer make it to the meeting.

The Earnings

Your salary will depend on the services you choose to give and to what industry your boss work at. And when you do this on a home based set up, your salary will depend on the number of hours that you spend on the tasks. You will be paid on a hourly basis even if you have finished your tasks for two days or you did not finish the assigned tasks for the day. You just have to make sure that if the latter occurs, you will be ready to make up for it on the coming days.

Finding Jobs

On an offline set up, you would have to go through the usual process of going through an agency to find you the right company and the right job. You can also opt for referrals or finding gigs through leads.

It will be easier when you do this online. There are a lot of web sites where you can sign up to and apply for the available PA jobs. If you have become accustomed to the whole process, you can even acquire a lot of employers at a time. Just make sure that you will be able to give your best shot at every task given to you.

Finding personal assistant jobs can be easy. This is true as long as you have the will to do it and the capacity to carry out everything that will be assigned for you to do. Just be sure that before you apply to any PA gigs, you are well equipped with the skills and you can commit to the time that you’ve agreed to work for an employer.

Hiring a Personal Assistant

Sphere: Related Content

More and more people are occupied with so many things. Some are so busy into their work—thus—they have less or no more time for other things that they should be doing. While others simply cannot perform or attend to their duties to numerous reasons such as medical condition or lifestyle. For these people, having a personal assistant is a great help to maximize their time as well as their energy.

Process of hiring a personal assistant

Today, the demand for efficient personal assistants continues to increase because more and more people are busy with so many things. With this at hand, the employment for personal assistant has become a lucrative employment target.

If you have an extremely busy life, a time-consuming executive career or your own business, or if you are working in a large home taking care of handling daily operations that involves business or office, then it is a must that you hire a personal assistant. Since a personal assistant will have a great responsibility in your life and business, you cannot just hire somebody for the position. To effectively hire a personal assistant, you must:

1. Write down the description of the job that the personal assistant needs to do. This list should contain specific details of what you really need the personal assistant is for.

2. Advertise your need for the personal assistant depending on your requirements. You can do this by placing a small advertisement in the local newspaper. Make sure that you include your contact details so the applicant can reach you easily.

3. Choose at least the top five among the applicants based on their resumes and credentials. To save some time, make sure that you pick those that have previous experience in being a PA in your work setting. This can be very convenient because it will take you lesser time to train the PA, all you need to do is conduct an extensive briefing and that would be it. In some cases, it will also be wise to hire qualified college fresh graduate because you can benefit from their vigor.

4. Set the schedule for the interview. Scheduling an interview should take place in one single day. By doing this, you can readily compare each applicant and there's a greater chance of hiring a new personal assistant when the interview sessions are over. If you are not in a hurry to hire one, you can conduct a two-part interview to properly screen the respective candidates. On the second interview, ask somebody—a friend or a co-worker—to come with you and conduct an observation. This can be beneficial for you because you can get a feedback from other people.

5. After you have chosen the best candidate, prepare an orientation. This is very important because he or she exactly would be briefed on how the office or the business works. During the orientation, be prepared to discuss the salary and other benefits he or she will be getting.

6. Set a trial period. This is a wise move when hiring a personal assistant because you will never really know if he or she is fit for the job unless the PA is doing the work. A three-moth period is suitable to know if the hired personal assistant is fit for the job requirements that you need or not.

The Job Description of a Personal Assistant

Sphere: Related Content

A lot of people employ a personal assistant. But what does a personal assistant really do? What is his or her job description?

The personal assistant is called by many names. They can also be referred to as executive secretary or executive assistant. He or she works closely with the manager then coordinates with the various departments.

But most of the time, this person deals with administrative and secretarial tasks like answer the phone, enter, welcome the visitors, make appointments, deal with deliveries and faxes, make schedules, take dictation and minutes, produce presentations, do background research, organize meetings, liaise both internally and externally, arrange travel accommodations, organize paperwork and make decisions in the absence of others.

In order to be an effective personal assistant, you should be able to know the company and the business inside and out. This will allow you to get in touch with the right people when you are instructed to. Given that you handle matters that are important to the company, you should be trustworthy and exercise confidentiality and discretion at all times.

The personal assistant may sometimes be instructed to do other duties. This may involve handling accounts and budgets, carrying out a specific project and take some of the manager’s load which means being given the opportunity to be involved in the decision making process. Some companies do that while others don’t and just stick to the basics as mentioned.

Celebrities, professional assistants and politicians are just some of the few examples of people who need a personal assistant. Small businesses also do and the average salary of a personal assistant these days is $37,000.

If you think about it, there is no specific educational degree that lands you the job of a personal assistant. It just happens which is why a company who feels the need for one will probably hire someone internally before posting a job posting.

In order for the two to work together, both the manager and the personal assistant should have good rapport otherwise nothing gets done.

Should you consider being a personal assistant, keep in mind there are some drawbacks. For one, you will have to work 40 to 80 hours or more especially when your boss has a late night meeting or tells you to accompany him or her to a business out of town. You may be on call 24/7 so you may have to rush from one place to another even late at night or the in early hours of the morning.

But there are benefits for being a personal assistant. You get to meet other celebrities and high level executives that could lead to better job opportunities. You get to attend business dinners or even parties. Those who travel get to work and go on vacation at the same time which often includes free travel and an expense account.

Working any job even that of a personal assistant has its ups and downs. Those who can take it will be able to stay in this position for a very long time while others who have tried but could not stomach it will look for a better job role. For you to succeed here, you have to be trust worthy, hard working, can work under pressure and have a strong work ethic.

How Much a Personal Assistant Could Cost You

Sphere: Related Content

For some people, having a personal assistant can be considered a perk. Why? This is because they can be spared from all the tasks they need to do on a day-to-day basis. But having a personal assistant could cost you much. This is the reason why many people think that they could not afford hiring one. Although it could cost you money, it can help you save more effort and time to do other things.

If you really need one, you can hire a personal assistant that doesn’t have a high salary and lots of benefits. But of course, that would also depend on the type of work that he or she will be doing for you. Before decide on hiring a personal assistant, it is best to conduct a research first so you would know the acceptable rates for their services. Then, list down the tasks he or she will be taking care of, that way you can find an efficient personal assistant fit for your needs.

Most of the personal assistants for the high ranking people and public figures such as politicians, lawyers, celebrities and businessmen earn from $40,000 to $120,000 in a year. And this sum of money even goes with added benefits and perks like free use of vehicle, mobile phone with line, gifts, and free vacations. But, there are also those that don’t need this salary, benefits, and perks. They are called "indispensable assistants" who can provide you with the services depending on your requirement.

The average rate of indispensable assistant who can provide personal assistance ranks up to $350 per month. This type of personal assistant is ideal for employers who don’t need to change tasks monthly. This is very practical because you will have to pay for the same set of tasks that the personal assistant needs to do.

For people who have busy schedule due to one or more businesses and travels most of the time, the executive personal assistant is ideal. Salary ranges $800 to $1000 monthly or $20 to $30 hourly, which covers the basic support for you and your family. You can ask this type of assistant to do even menial jobs at the house such as watering the plants, buying groceries, take care of your pet, takes care of the things that you need before and after your trip. They can even send thank you notes and gifts to your family members or friends on special occasions that you cannot attend to.

If you prefer hourly or daily services, you can ask for personal assistants that can provide errands services. For just $25 to $30 an hour, you can ask somebody to buy the materials for your child's project, bring a set of documents to office, and other menial jobs you don’t have time to attend to.

If you need somebody to assist you in managing your schedule, prepare travel documents, make specific arrangements, do data entries, sort out files and things that you need for the office or business, you can pay an administrative assistant, $22-$30 per hour. This type of assistant is only for business tasks, you cannot ask them run some errands for you nor do your calendar.

For people who need somebody to help out in office or managing your business, hire an executive assistant which would cost you $25 to $35 an hour. This personal assistant can help you in answering and returning phone calls, managing your calendar, travel schedule and prepare things that you need for your travel, do presentation as well as preparing budget and expenses records.