The timing may differ, but one constant thing is that every busy entrepreneur requires an executive virtual assistant. It’s not a trend that you have to keep up.

The important thing is to recognize why you need an executive assistant and how they will help your business. Therefore, let’s go straight to why you need an executive assistant.

Why You Need the Right Fit Executive Virtual Assistant?

An executive virtual assistant will play a vital role in achieving your business's strategic goals. A VA will add value to your business in the following ways.

• Increase your business productivity

• Build on the business culture

• Improve your customer service levels

• Contribute towards your business growth

• Help you become more productive

But most importantly, an executive virtual assistant will work closely with you. Therefore, you need someone who understands your business and gets how you like things done. Truth be told, you would want someone who is a carbon copy of yourself.

As we speak, maybe you are in that stage of business growth where you feel it's time to hire an executive assistant. The biggest worry for you right now should be how you can find a right-fit executive virtual assistant who understands your business and matches your ambition levels.

You have a valid reason to be concerned. An executive virtual assistant is a person you will entrust to help you streamline your business processes.

You should prepare the right interview questions to ask a potential executive virtual assistant. It’ll help you alleviate your fears and increase your chances of hiring the right person.

The following are some of the questions you should ask your interviewee.

What Skills Do You Possess that are Relevant to the Job?

It may seem like an obvious interview question. However, it’s one of the most important questions to ensure you hire someone who will handle the job as stated in the job description.

Skills and experiences determine the potential VA's ability to add value to your business. What do they bring to your team, and do the candidate's skills and experiences align with your business needs?

The right fit executive assistant should comfortably explain the skills they possess that apply to the executive assistant's job responsibilities. Moreover, they should display their understanding of relevant automation tools.

What Experiences Have You Had?

On the other hand, experience level offers insights into the potential VA's ability to use their respective skills at a business level. For example, it is a good indicator of the learning curve required to get the VA to your levels of job liking.

However, you cannot entirely trust the skills and experiences potential candidates include in their executive assistant portfolio. It is not uncommon for candidates to include skills and experiences they don't possess in their portfolio.

That is why you need to have it as an interview question. Maybe then you can ask for clarifications on various things the VA may have included in their portfolio.

What are Your Time-zone and Preferred Working Hours?

The question of time is very important in such an interview, given that the executive assistant will be remotely based. The VA’s time zone and preferred working hours could be a deal breaker.

One of the main reasons you are recruiting an executive assistant is to help you with your workload. Therefore, the VA will add no value to you or your business if they can't work at your convenient time.

What Strategies Do You Use to Manage Your Schedule When Dealing with Multiple Urgent Tasks?

The main objective of this question is to determine the flexibility of the potential VA. How many more clients is the executive assistant offering similar services to currently?

Also, will the executive assistant be the one working for you, or will they subcontract the work to another team?

If you are not comfortable working with a third party, let them know.

How Do You Anticipate Your Client's Needs?

You can easily assess the type of services to expect from a VA's understanding based on their knowledge of the executive and business needs. A good executive assistant shouldn't constantly react to their executive's needs.

The VA should be able to anticipate arising issues in your business. That gives you assurances that they will be able to design a flexible schedule and contribute to your productivity.

Invite Us to an Interview Now

You can call off the search because you just found the right fit executive assistant for your business. Get in touch today to discuss how we can take the next growth stage together. You will be amazed by our business automation solutions to help you streamline your business processes.