Do you find yourself constantly on the go? Do you juggle your professional life with your family life? Are you missing out on your children’s social events or spending time with them? Would it be great to be able to have an evening off from household chores like preparing dinner and cleaning up?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then you should consider hiring a private household executive personal assistant. This household staffing position is perfect for homes that need some extra help from a professional who can assist with a wide range of tasks and duties.

What Are the Job Duties of a Private Household Executive Personal Assistant?

The job duties of a personal household assistant will vary depending on the needs of your home. Their duties will also vary depending on whether you have other household staff like a maid, butler, professional chef, and so on. Their primary task is to help keep your home running smoothly by taking care of your needs to help free up your time to focus more on what you want.

In general, a personal household assistant should be able to perform any of the following job duties:

• Manage your personal calendar and schedule.
• Manage personal calendars and schedules for other family members including your children.
• Run errands and manage deliveries of groceries, dry cleaning, and so on.
• Schedule maintenance and repairs for your home and vehicles.
• Take care of your pets, such as scheduling veterinary appointments, grooming appointments, etc.
• Sorting and doing laundry, folding, and ironing.
• Plan and prepare meals or ensure that meals are prepared.
• Light housekeeping and cleaning duties.
• Ensuring your children get to and from school each day.
• Accompanying children to social events, school events, and other such activities.
• Assisting you with your personal finances like balancing your checking account, paying bills, and performing other bookkeeping tasks.
• Supervise and direct the job duties and functions of other household staff.
• Coordinate and plan special events, parties, etc.

Please keep in mind that this list of job duties is not exhaustive. Again, the exact job duties and functions for your personal household assistant will depend on what information you include in your household personal assistant job description.

Who Can Benefit the Most by Hiring a Private Household Executive Personal Assistant?

Anyone who finds that there just never seems like there are enough hours in the day to get everything done and accomplished can benefit from a private household executive assistant. Whether you are trying to create the ideal work-life balance or simply want to be able to sit down and relax in the evenings without having to worry about tasks being left undone, you will appreciate the help you receive from your household assistant.

Families can also benefit from hiring a private household executive assistant. The personal assistant can help with some of the parental responsibilities like getting the children off to school or picking them up. In between those times, they can run errands, plan meals, and take care of other tasks for more efficient household management and operation.

Imagine being able to sit down in the evening for a family meal with your entire family. You can when you hire an executive assistant for your household. Your assistant can plan a menu of meals and manage meal preparation as well. You won’t have to lift a finger to cook, clear the table after dinner, or even do dishes.

How to Hire the Right Private Household Executive Personal Assistant

The first thing you need to do is to make a list of what job duties and functions you would have a personal household assistant perform. Your list should be as detailed as possible and include generalized descriptions of what each task entails.

For example, if you want them to take care of meal planning and preparation, the duties associated with this task could include:

• Making menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• Having you approve the menus.
• Ordering the necessary groceries to prepare each meal.
• Consulting with your professional chef and providing them with the menu for the week.
• If you don’t have a professional chef on staff, then your assistance may be tasked with cooking the meals themselves.
• Cleaning up and doing dishes after each meal, unless you have a housekeeper or other household staff that performs these tasks.

As can be seen, you want to be as specific about the job duties as possible. It is one thing to expect your assistant to take care of meals and another to clearly define how you want them to do this. You should repeat this same process for each job duty and function on your list.

Once your list is complete, review it to ensure you did not miss anything. Next, you want to write a summary of the household personal assistant job description that reflects your expectations. The job description should come first, above the list of duties. The description is a summary and should not be longer than one or two paragraphs.

After the list of job duties, write a paragraph or two about your expectations in regards to the level of experience you seek in a personal assistant. For instance, if you expect the assistant to help with household finances, you may want to specify they should have excellent bookkeeping skills.

This is also where you can list any educational requirements you may have, such as having a college degree. Additionally, if you want job candidates who already have experience as household assistants, you would include that here, plus the number of years of experience you desire.

Now that your job description is complete, the next step is to advertise the position. You can go about this in different ways. You could take out an ad yourself in a newspaper or post the position through a job marketplace online. Yet, this method does require additional work: performing background checks, vetting job candidates, verifying references, and so on.

Why Use a Staffing Agency to Hire an Executive Assistant for Your Household?

The easiest way to find the perfect candidate for your household executive personal assistant position is with help from a household staffing agency. The agency will have a pool of qualified job candidates to choose from to find the right candidate for your needs.

The household staffing agency will work with you, based on the detailed job description you created, to find matching candidates. Once they do, they will send you their resumes and other details for you to review.

The staffing agency also takes care of performing background checks, vetting the candidates, and confirming their previous employment references. They are equally happy to share this information with you about each candidate.

After reviewing the information you receive from the staffing agency, you simply select the candidates you would like to interview. The agency will schedule interviews at times that work with your schedule.

Once you complete all the interviews, you can request second interviews with candidates you are considering and want to learn more about, or you can select the one candidate that seems like the best fit for you and your household.

The agency will assist you with salary negotiations and other such aspects of hiring the household assistant.

Interview Tips to Narrow Down Candidates

While you will be presented with several qualified job candidates, you will want to narrow these down as much as possible during the initial interviews. To assist you in this process, we recommend using the following tips:

• Have everyone present that the personal assistant will be working with. This includes your spouse or partner, children, other family members that live with you, and any other household staff. Your objective is to see how well they interact with others.
• Present them with a scenario and ask how they would resolve the situation. The scenarios can be issues you are presently dealing with—like trying to get your children to school on time when you have to be at work at the same time—or made-up special situation scenarios, as what if they saw another household staff member doing something they shouldn’t?
• Inquire about their expectations regarding holidays and vacations. You need to know if your assistant has plans to go on vacation or expects to have certain holidays off.
• Inquire about their job duty expectations and ability to meet your needs. You need clarification to ensure the candidate clearly understands your expectations and needs. You don’t want them to assume you mean one thing when you mean something else.
• If you are undecided about two different candidates, consider a trial run with each one. Sometimes you may encounter two candidates that seem like the perfect fit, yet you are not sure which one to choose. One way to help you decide is to give each candidate a one-week trial run. Then, after each candidate has worked for you for their week, you can decide which one fits better with your household.

By using these tips, you can narrow down your search for the best household assistant for your home.

For help with finding and hiring an executive assistant for your household, please contact Staffing at Tiffanie’s at 866-484-5550 today! We can also assist you with other household staffing needs, including nannies, housekeepers, butlers, personal drivers, professional chefs, household and estate managers, yachting staff, and more!