Hi Kally,
Everyone is lamenting how hard is to find a job in the economy these days. I have a different problem. I need to find a personal assistant for myself. As our company is small, we don’t have a dedicated HR person to do the hiring so I am on my own here. The last PA I had been great, she was with me for 6 years before she quit to be a stay home mum.
Now I know the pay is not fantastic because the firm is so small (we only have 10 people in the office) and the work is not exciting or challenging. The work in fact is simple, some filing and invoicing, flight and hotel arrangements, taking messages and running some errands. I couldn’t find anyone suitable who is willing to fit in the position.The only decent one I managed to find, worked only for a day before doing a disappearing act on us the very next day. We are also not asking for someone with experience or a degree holder, just a person with good positive attitude and decent responsibility with good organization skills.
As I struggle to do everything my own, I’m drowning here as the work kept piling up. Any quick fix you can advice me here?
From,
Lorna D*
Hi Lorna,
I have a good and bad news for you.
Good news is that you can have a quick fix. There are agencies out there who can match you with a part-timer or a freelancers with your job descriptions. Since your work sounds simple enough, you probably can make do with a freelancer until you find someone suitable. Alternatively, you can also go online and locate a suitable freelancer for a virtual assistant who will help with simple tasks as long as they are not confidential. I find that virtual assistants usually comes with full of experiences just that their situation limits their movement very much at home but that shouldn’t affect the quality of their work. You can find them here at Fiverr and Upwork.
The bad news is that finding the right person takes time. You might need to hone and guide a person to suit your needs as well as to work as good as your last personal assistant. You are right in saying you should be looking at the person’s attitude and responsibility instead of relying just on paper qualifications. Sometimes giving a person without proper education a chance will go a long way for you because they will be grateful for the chance and return in favour with their loyalty and willingness to adapt and learn.
You might not know it but the freelancer that you hire might turn into someone permanent if the package is attractive enough. I wish you all the best in searching for the right one!
Thank you for writing in and sharing your problem.
Regards, Kally@MiddleMe.net
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