Are you online job hunting this pandemic? Or maybe you just want a career that you can do at home without sacrificing your pay and family time. Remote working will surely give that.
But then which of the jobs can you do that you can learn quickly? You can try out a personal assistant role.
What do Personal Assistants Do?
There are thousands of people who need more time in the world. Maybe they are handling a business. They can be athletes. Or some might just want the extra time to do the things that matter the most. That’s where personal assistants come in.
Personal assistants can help their clients with routine and administrative tasks such as appointment scheduling, booking flights and hotel reservations, organizing files, and even finding the best groomer for their pet dogs.
Virtual personal assistants can lift the burden from their clients to give them more time for things they can only do.
Difference between Executive Assistants and Personal Assistants?
You might ask, isn’t it pretty similar to executive assistant tasks? Well, these two roles are wildly interchanged. Both personal assistants and executive assistants have almost the same work.
The main difference is, executive assistants handle high-management like CEOs, business executives, and more.
With this, they have more significant responsibilities that can extend to daily management decisions and roles on behalf of the executive. And they are usually present during meetings and presentations.
While personal assistants have a more exclusive administrative role without the added pressure. But, even with this, you need to differentiate yourself from the good and be the best. So here are 7 crucial skills to become an in-demand personal assistant.
Tech-Savvy
Technology is heavily ingrained in our daily living. For example, almost every problem has an app solution on our mobile phones. And it’s the same with your personal assistant job. Do you know how to use the most common applications for your client?
It can be office applications from GSuite. Or it can be scheduling software like Google Calendar and Calendly. Better yet, booking apps like Agoda and Trivago.
For whatever need, there is an actual application for it. You should be tech-savvy enough to use it to your advantage.
Organizing Skills
Your job is to free up the time of your boss. It means a coordinated schedule of activities and agenda for them every day. You should have the organizing skills to set up an efficient calendar daily.
And it’s not only for their schedules. It can extend to file management and fixing their needed nutrient-rich grocery list. Have the organizing skills to better support your client.
Learn Your Boss’ Preferences
You work for, you guess it, your boss. You are tasked to support him/her and make their life hassle-free from the trivial stuff. With this, you should learn your boss’ preferences.
If they ask you to book specific flights, do they have a preference as to the seats? Do they want a particular hotel for the trip?
Sometimes, they ask for dinner reservations or organize a lunch meeting; what’s their preferred restaurant? Do they have specific allergies? And there’s more to know about them along the way.
You don’t need to identify this in the first few days. But be curious enough to ask about it. In the duration of your service, you should be keeping tabs with these bit of details to provide the best assistance for your client.
Proactive
Not everything will be delegated to you. But the little things do count if you want to be the best personal assistant. You should be proactive with the tasks given to you.
For example, when they asked you to create a slideshow for a conference meeting next week. You can be proactive enough to ask what kind of accommodation they would want. Better yet, if you know that they have to fly anyway, you can jump to asking if they want to be booked in Hilton or Shangri-La?
When you have a decent grasp of their preferences, you can surely ask or do things that go beyond just the initial request. And these do have a lasting impression on your boss.
Communication Skills
With the difficulties of online communication, you should be equipped with the proper skills to have your thoughts and ideas across. After all, you can’t actually see your client’s body language and voice intonations. And this can cause a lot of miscommunication.
So be wary of your punctuation and capitalization. For example, DON’T TYPE IN CAPITAL LETTER AS THIS MAY BE PERCEIVED AS AN IRATE MESSAGE. Also, too many exclamation points can elicit a wrong impression!!!!!
Lastly, don’t be afraid to use emojis to express a smile on your face. 😁
Flexibility
Not everything goes in your way. There will be times when there will be problems with your scheduling or with your endeavors. Do you have what it takes to still push through and adjust?
You have to be flexible with your tasks. Think of other ideas that can be done to still achieve the desired result. In this way, you can be a reliable partner even without 100% supervision from your client.
Learning Attitude
Every boss has different needs. And these needs do change over time. Are you ready to learn new things? It might be as simple as using another booking website. Or as complex as learning the ropes of new software for encoding.
You should have a learning attitude and grow with the evolving needs of your boss.
Conclusion
Now is the time to get your personal assistant remote work. If you hone your skills, you will surely get the best offers in the long run.
If you’re looking for opportunities in this field, check this link to find out more. Cheers!
