How To Become A Personal Assistant
Personal assistants are an integral cog in any business. An assistant role can comprise anything from a celebrity assistant to an administrative professional.
If you want career tips, follow our introduction to professional administrative roles, find resume examples, and get a personal assistant education. We’ll share the best assistant training courses for careers advice and professional administrative tips.
What does a personal assistant do?
A personal assistant is a varied and dynamic job. Depending on who you work for, the role can encompass different tasks. A personal assistant can work for a manager, executive, celebrity, or wealthy family.
Essentially, personal assistants are in charge of household management and can be anything from office administrators to manning social media accounts. They are responsible for all the behind-the-scenes activities in a business, and they know everything.
Often the first point of contact for outside correspondence, they answer phone calls and emails. Administrative professional jobs might schedule appointments, event planning, and acting as customer service representatives.
Working as an effective gatekeeper to the company or person, they will deal with day-to-day administrative tasks. Completing errands, scheduling appointments, managing correspondence, and planning travel are all part of the role.
A successful personal assistant is so integral to the business, and they are impossible to replace. A celebrity personal assistant might look after the personal care and personal information of that person.
Doing less office administration, a celebrity PA will support the well-known individual’s every need. You can take an assistant training course to learn the skills needed for any PA job.
What is the difference between an EA and a PA?
Executive assistants and personal assistants are similar career paths, and they are both customer relations jobs and the point of contact for outside correspondence.
An executive assistant acts more as an office manager for a business manager or company as a whole. They are administrative professionals and can be involved in business strategy.
An executive assistant knows the business inside and out and understands a company's goals, projects, and deadlines. A personal assistant job description suggests you act as an assistant for actors, writers, athletes, and designers.
A personal assistant concentrates on an individual's life as well as their career. An executive assistant is more involved in the business than the personal life of their employer.
Executive assistant training might focus more on administrative and secretarial skills. A course for executive assistants will look good on a resume.
What is the difference between a personal assistant and a virtual assistant?
Personal assistants and virtual assistants have related careers and similar job titles. A virtual assistant offers the services of an executive or personal assistant online. They manage an office's administrative and clerical work remotely.
A virtual assistant's job is variable and dynamic, and they can help with anything from running social media platforms to writing blogs. On the other hand, personal assistants often work face to face with their employer.
An online executive assistant might take virtual assistant training to understand how to adapt their skills to an online presence. A successful virtual assistant might work freelance, setting up a virtual assistant business for multiple clients.
Because of the nature of freelance online work, virtual assistants often work more temporary jobs. They might help a start-up business grow or assist a company on short-term projects.
What are the benefits of being a personal assistant?
There are many benefits to being a personal assistant. Whether it’s your dream job to be a celebrity PA or you’re a highly organized office manager, a personal assistant job is rewarding.
As a personal assistant, you get to shadow and examine how the top business managers work for their success. If your goal is to open your own business one day, there’s no better place to pick up experience and learn the best strategies.
If you become a celebrity PA, you get a coveted insight into the life of the famous. There might even be some fancy job perks. If your boss travels, you will get to see the world while working.
The day in the life of a personal assistant is never dull. Depending on who you work for, each day brings new exciting challenges and people to meet. More so, the higher the profile of your employer.
You don’t need a college degree to work as a personal assistant. Courses for executive assistants are good qualifications to have, as is any administrative experience. You can become a personal assistant with relatively little training.
A successful and experienced PA is integral to their employer’s life or company, and the salaries are surprisingly good.
How much does a personal assistant make?
According to job site Glassdoor, the salary range for personal assistants is between $50,000 and $85,000. An experienced and well-trained PA will be at the higher end of this scale.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites the average salary for secretaries and administrative assistants as $40,990.
What skills do you need to be a personal assistant?
A successful personal assistant has a range of skills and adapts their abilities for every situation. With a can-do attitude and strong management skills, anyone can be a personal assistant.
The personal assistant essentials are effective time management, attention to detail, and communication skills.
Soft skills and interpersonal skills are vital for any assistant job. A large part of the job involves communicating with everyone from clients and customers to your employer.
Make sure to include your comprehensive set of organizational skills in your cover letter. Organization skills are an essential part of your job as a personal assistant. Far from just being organized in your day-to-day tasks, you need to keep your employer’s life organized.
Discretion and trustworthiness are also crucial. You might work for a very high-profile person. As a personal assistant, you will know everything about this person’s life, and they need to trust you not to share.
Similarly, you need strong tact and diplomacy skills. Not everything always goes to plan. As the first point of contact, you will be the one to inform your employer or clients about disrupted plans. Tact goes a long way to appease many situations.
How to be a personal assistant?
There are many routes to becoming a personal assistant. A personal assistant does not need a school diploma from working in a staffing agency or entertainment industry.
A job description will, however, ask for experience as a personal or administrative assistant. Working in an office is one way to get experience for your resume and build your secretarial skills.
You might have to work for lesser-known clients to prove your talents as a personal assistant. With several years of experience under your belt, you will soon be working with the best in the business.
There are online courses for executive or celebrity personal assistants. An executive assistant course will provide you with the required skills and experience for your first role.
What are some of the best personal assistant courses?
An online course for executive assistants is an excellent way to get into the industry. Studying a course online will award you a certificate of achievement to add to your resume.
The best personal assistant courses offer career guides, resume samples, and cover letter samples. Courses for Success offer an Admin, PA & Secretarial Online Certificate Course. The course covers an introduction to project management, office management, and how to get personal assistant jobs.
Course students take a course assessment to prove the knowledge they have learned and receive a completion certificate. A course for executive assistants is a promising way to launch your career as a personal assistant.
Why Courses for Success?
Courses for Success offers over 10,000 online courses, all of which aim to help you in your personal development and career progression. Not only that, but you can also study them anywhere and at any time, and take them at your own pace, too.
You don’t need career diplomas or specific experience to get started. From our coding courses and trading courses to design courses and developer courses, every course we offer will help boost your prospects, no matter who you are.
Beyond just the education itself, students will be issued a certificate online after completing each of the learning courses they do. Our online admin, PA, and secretarial courses are no exception and are recognized by industry leaders. You could make a name for yourself by signing up for a Courses for Success short course today.