What Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Personal Assistant? Depending on the industry, there will be different qualifications you need to be a personal assistant. In the highly-competitive world of business, managers rely on personal assistants to support them in most areas of the business. The duties of a personal assistant can include everything from mundane administrative tasks like daily management, scheduling meetings, correspondence, and note-taking, to specialized tasks like technical expertise in website development, graphic design, and social media management. Currently, there are over 40,832 personal assistants employed in the United States – and yes, getting an extra pair of very capable hands to help manage their business is exactly what top companies do to grow. But what Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Personal Assistant? in general?
What Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Personal Assistant? – Our Picks
These are some of the main points:
1. To qualify, you need to be a personal assistant with strong communication skills.
The ability to accurately and effectively relay exactly what needs to be said is a vital quality for a personal assistant. This will allow you to build rapport with the people you interact with, especially when creating partnerships and ensuring your manager is well-informed. Effective communication also isn’t just about talking – it’s about listening. As a personal assistant, you deal with a lot of people like your boss does, and you may receive different volumes of information every day. Learning how to absorb that and reWhat Qualifications Do You Need To Be A Personal Assistant?. Strong communication skills also involve (and actually are more of) non-verbal communication. Getting your message across means communicating it with your body as well – eye contact, posture, and hand movements. Understanding the importance of both verbal and non-verbal communication in the workplace is especially important when you consider that 86% of employees and executives cite the lack of effective collaboration and communication as the main cause of workplace failures.
2. To qualify, you need to be a personal assistant with strategic thinking.
Personal assistants are hired to provide crucial support and input to help their executives carry out the company’s objectives. And to qualify for this, you need to be a personal assistant with strategy. Simply performing the duties assigned to you is not enough – you also need to understand why a certain task needs to be done and how it causes a significant impact on the business overall. And at its simplest form, strategic thinking entails being able to plan for the future through a thorough analysis of the present.
Every industry has the potential to have hectic environments with a number of challenges that lie ahead. You need to be a personal assistant who is prepared to handle these with appropriate strategies and ideas in place. Strategic thinking requires research, critical thinking, innovation, and decisiveness. It’s vital to always see the bigger picture, so you can also assess the risks present in every decision you make as a personal assistant.
3. To qualify, you need to be a personal assistant with strong time management skills.
As a personal assistant, your time is your most important asset – just the way it is for your managers and everyone else around you, as well. Having strong time management skills is what you need to be a personal assistant capable of delivering what is asked of you. Especially if you’re handling more than one task or responsibility at a time. If you’re using your time productively and efficiently. Then your output will reflect the discipline you put into doing them.
Knowing what needs to be prioritized is also another vital thing you need to be a personal assistant. An effective hack to this is understanding the difference between urgent and important – urgent tasks demand your immediate attention (like answering the phone), but it may or may not matter if you actually give them that attention or not; whereas for important tasks (like going to the dentist), it matters, and not doing them can lead to serious consequences for you and other people. As someone who’s also responsible for their managers’ time, personal assistants should always strive to be efficient and punctual.
4. To qualify, you need to be a personal assistant with good organizational skills.
The organization is second nature to personal assistants. To qualify for any assistant position, you need to be a personal assistant with a high level of adaptability who can easily adjust schedules or tasks to keep up with shifting business environments and still have everything accounted for. Having stable filing systems and databases is some of the best ways to stay on top of your duties.
The list of personal assistant duties can go on and on and on. There will always be competing priorities of various degrees of urgency that can challenge your ability to meet deadlines, remember meeting schedules, and provide essential project details. To navigate this, you need to be a personal assistant who knows how to be alert and quick on their feet. Creating comprehensive to-do lists every day is also another trusted hack to keep track of what needs your attention. But overall, the ability to work under pressure is the best way to ensure your organizational skills remain unbothered.
5. To qualify, you need to be a personal assistant with initiative.
Being proactive is always a great quality for every employee, much more so for a personal assistant. This trait allows you to be alert for opportunities to improve certain processes and procedures that will ultimately help not only you but the whole company as well. To qualify for this, you need to be a personal assistant who is capable of thinking for yourself and taking action when necessary. Having the consistent drive to make things better or easier in the workplace, in general, is a key work skill.
Taking initiative will also strengthen your decision-making skills as a personal assistant handling a number of day-by-day responsibilities. But a successful initiative means incorporating existing organizational culture into a change initiative. And it all starts by simply voicing your ideas and being more decisive, until you gain enough momentum to anticipate the questions and prepare answers, and eventually, take the lead in improving systems, procedures, and policies. You need to be a personal assistant who takes the fear out of the equation.
6. To qualify, you need to have attention to detail.
The dedication to producing error-free, accurate work is a good example of what you need to be a personal assistant. Employers value people with strong attention to detail since this trait shows both efficiency and productivity. Personal assistants should be able to scrutinize everything in minute detail, especially if they handle big numbers and thick papers. Grammatically correct, professional, and accurate outputs are what make up a strong personal assistant work ethic, since what you produce as a personal assistant will ultimately reflect the values and branding of your superiors and your organization as well.
Avoiding inconsistencies and errors is not easy, as it takes a highly-trained eye to take note of these. But once you dedicate enough time and effort towards being thorough in your work. Your employer will rest easy knowing that you will require minimal supervision. Since you can now exhibit a common core competency that managers are known to often seek in their candidates for personal assistants.
7. To qualify, you need to have confidence.
When you’re confident in what you do, others will also be confident in you. Employers benefit from confident employees since they tend to be more productive, more capable, and overall a more positive contributor to the workplace. This can also translate to a stronger brand perception. Especially if you’re a personal assistant in a customer-focused industry. To qualify for this, you need to be a personal assistant who takes the courage to be more assertive, more proactive, bold, and just more.
Being confident doesn’t have to mean being perfect. As a personal assistant, you can still have your limitations and be confident in addressing them. As a means to practice and learn more so, you could grow – and the company can grow along with you.
Hope you find the answer to it.
Often described as the “jack of all trades”, personal assistants bring amazing quality and meaning to their roles. They are a vital part of every company, big or small. Since they provide unconditional value no matter what duty they are assigned to perform. And if you happen to be in the market for a strong, competent, talented, and dedicated personal assistant. Then you can sign up with The Outsourcer so you can find just what you’re looking for – and more! Here at The Outsourcer, we match you with the best and most affordable talent who can be an exceptional asset to your company. Give us a call so you can automatically get access to 50 different services all managed by ONE Personalized Virtual Assistant, and jumpstart your company’s success!