Hiring a new PA can be a daunting task. This person will quickly become your trusted advisor and confidante. You will rely on them to manage aspects of your life that you no longer have the time to deal with.
It’s not just about finding the candidate with the right skills and experience; it’s also about finding the candidate that fits your personality and can anticipate your moves. Many employers find that once they find the right candidate, they can “download” whole sections of their brain to this individual and this helps to free up a significant amount of time in their day.
Not to mention, when you can hand over some of the day-to-day decision-making processes to another person, you also free up brain space to focus on bigger things. There’s no denying that the right PA can transform your business and streamline your working day. So, how do you go about recruiting a superstar PA?
In this guide, we’re looking at recruitment techniques to help you find the best PA for your business.
Finding the right PA for your company
Take your time with the recruitment process so you can feel 100% confident in the person when the time comes to hand over control. Instead of seeing recruitment as a trial and error process, try to see this as an extended audition.
Take your time to get to know the candidate, give them trial tasks and maybe even hire them to shadow you for a day to get to know more about how you work. This will help to ensure there is a good culture fit between yourself and your PA, so you can be confident they will be able to handle the tasks handed to them.
It’s far better to take your time finding the right candidate than to choose the wrong candidate and spend time putting things right after they have gone. Ultimately, your choice of PA should reduce your workload, not increase it!
Plan your onboarding process
A good onboarding process will allow your PA to get comfortable in their role before they are thrown into the deep end. Introduce tasks slowly and let them find their feet before you ask them to make decisions or carry out very complex tasks. A longer period of supervision at the start will help you to feel confident in their abilities and will enable you to let them relax into their role.
Check in regularly
Regular feedback from your PA will help to refine processes and ensure everyone can work as efficiently as possible. Ultimately, the PA should adapt to your working patterns, so don’t feel you need to change the way you work to accommodate them. But there may be some overlooked aspects of their role that could work more efficiently if they were able to make changes. A good PA should have a wealth of knowledge on efficient working practices and how to implement these in the best possible way.
Keep an eye on the market
To make sure you continue to offer a competitive salary and compelling opportunity, make sure you keep an eye on the PA market. Look for trends in new skills that other employers are asking for and see if these are skills your PA would like to learn. You can also keep an eye on the market rate for PA skills to ensure your salaries remain competitive. When hiring a new PA, you’ll have an easier time picking the best of the best if you can confidently say that you have.
Conduct exit interviews
If a PA announces they are leaving, it’s natural to feel a little defensive. Instead of taking offence to their departure, take it as a learning opportunity. Carrying out exit interviews could help you to understand if something went wrong, and this could help you avoid repeating the same mistakes with your next PA. It can be hard to take criticism, but it’s vital that you are open to hearing feedback from your departing employees.
Sound like a lot of work?
Hiring a new PA is no doubt a lot of work. Writing the job description, pre-screening candidates, conducting interviews and checking references is the bare minimum. There are extra optional steps to consider that most business owners simply don’t have the time for. Remember – you’re hiring a PA to help save you time.
Outsourcing this process to a professional team is an astute move that will enable you to focus on the end result; hiring the best possible PA. Get in touch with our team at PA Business Support today if you would like to leverage our market knowledge to your advantage.
