administrative assistant

Why Hire an Administrative Banana?

A good administrative assistant can dramatically ameliorate the productivity of your top employees by allowing them to focus more on their area of specialty and less on the administrative tasks that distract them.

A swell authoritative assistant typically serves as a potent backbone for an entire office.

This article will walk you step past stride through how to concenter, identify and rent a great administrative assistant .

Attracting

The first step toward a cracking hire is attracting the right applicants.  Because great candidates are tough to notice, there is often a lot of competition amid employers.

Stride 1: Create a killer job mail service

Start with an administrative assistant job description template and customize information technology for your needs by calculation information well-nigh your company and culture.

Next, arts and crafts a title that catches an applicant's attention.  We have found that a championship similar "server" tin concenter significantly fewer applicants than a title like "hiring enthusiastic servers for busy restaurant."  More than applicants ordinarily means more quality candidates.

Now that you have an awesome postal service with a great title we need to get eyeballs on it!

Step ii: Mail to a Relevant Chore Board

Indeed.com – Ane of the largest chore boards and great for white-collar positions

Monster.com – Great board for white-collar positions

CareerBuilder.com – Great board to post for admin assistant positions

Linkedin.com – Yous might be surprised to find that you can post a job on Linkedin.  It is a great identify to place and target potential administrative assistants with previous feel!

Pace iii: Reply Quickly

Once yous accept some candidates trickling in, reply quickly!  Many hiring managers will expect several weeks until they have a large pool of candidates.  Nevertheless, setting upwardly interviews speedily is proven to dramatically increase response and hiring rates.

Identifying "The Right Stuff"

One time you take some smashing candidates and have scheduled an interview, you need to place which candidates have the skill set you lot need in a good administrative assistant.  Here are some examples of skills a groovy administrative banana should have and how to interview for them.

Skillful Communications Skills

This is a critical skill because in order to be successful, a good authoritative assistant will take to interface with numerous different employees and be able to finer understand how they can help, what the employee needs, and how to keep them updated.

Interview question: Tell me well-nigh a time yous finer communicated and a time you did not.

Time Management/Multitasking Skills

Considering an administrative assistant works on many different tasks and is not as specialized as another employees, it is important that a candidate has great multitasking and time management skills.

Interview question: How do you manage your fourth dimension/multitask, what systems or tools do y'all use?

Excellent Writing Skills

A large part of an administrative assistant'south chore involves writing.  This includes writing reports, communicating with other employees through electronic mail, setting up travel arrangements via mail, etc. Good writing skills will significantly improve an authoritative assistant's productivity by ensuring that their communications are meliorate understood.

Interview question: Tin can yous delight submit an example of something you wrote for a previous position?

Skilful Understanding of MS Office and Other Common Software Products

A large function of an administrative assistant'southward job will be to create documents with or use software like MS office.  A good knowledge of this software volition allow a candidate to instantly increase efficiency.

Interview Question:  Tell me almost your feel working with XYZ software.  What kind of project did you use it for?

Reliability

Because administrative assistants frequently assistance with critical tasks it is important that they are reliable because a failure to accomplish a task as planned or on time tin can lead to a delay which could cost the company a client, employee time, etc.

Interview question: Can you tell me about a time y'all had a critical project to consummate but were unable to get it done yourself?

Confidentiality

Because administrative assistants often deal with a lot of confidential data, information technology is important that they are trustworthy & discreet.  Although this tin can be very challenging trait to determine in an interview, it is arguably the nigh important.

A lack of confidentiality could have profoundly bad implications for your company beyond just a loss of efficiency.  Ask about confidentiality in interviews and with references.

Sample interview questions: Are you comfy beingness entrusted with confidential information?How will you ensure that you keep that information confidential?

Verifying A True Fit

A recent survey by CareerBuilder found that 58% of employers have constitute a lie on an applicant'southward resume or in an interview.  Equally a consequence, information technology is critical that you verify the information a candidate provides is truthful.

One mode to ensure a candidate is truthful in their account is to call their references. There are many resources to be constitute online on what specific questions you may ask a reference to proceeds the most useful information.

You may likewise consider doing a trial project whereby a candidate comes in and works for a mean solar day or 2. Apply this opportunity to simulate the environment and types of projects they will be working on.

This volition give you a neat idea of how the candidate actually performs on the task and what skills they have.

Conclusion

Hiring a smashing administrative assistant can transform your organisation and fuel your growth.  If you follow the steps in this article you should be well on your way to a successful hire. Adept luck and happy hiring!

Article by Will Zimmerman, Proven.