INDUSTRY STATS
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Personal Assistant positions are at a -7% growth rate, which is negative. With that said, there are currently 3,363,900 jobs in the market right now. The total number of jobs is expected to decrease by -226,200 to 3,137,700 in the period of 2020-30.
What’s more, the median annual wage for the Personal Assistant jobs was $40,990 in May 2020. The lowest 10% earned less than $26,880, and the highest 10% more than $67,510.
Our conclusion? The Personal Assistant job market is facing competition due to decreasing demand.
Top personal assistant sections that make the best resume
- Header
- Professional summary
- Experience (with numbers and results)
- Relevant skills
- Education
- Certifications
Writing a strong personal assistant experience section
Personal assistant resume experience section: ultimate checklist
- Use no more than 4-6 bullet points per position;
- List relevant positions and situations that add value to your application;
- Describe situations, tasks, actions, and results (the S-T-A-R method);
- Remember to include numbers in whatever form you like (e.g. the number of projects you’ve finished);
- Begin each bullet point with an action verb.
Check out the examples below when building your experience section. They will help you stand out!
- Participation in the parliamentary activities and supporting the administrative work in the office of Dr. Andrey Kovatchev
- Attending meetings and taking minutes
- Preparing official documents
- Participation in the organization of official conferences
- Provided operational support to the Management regarding marketing, sales, HR and operations.
- Coordinate 10+ corporate events per year
- Allocated annual marketing budget
- Worked in Sales, Supply and Logistics, and Administration departments
- Took part in an on-site research of lighting sotres in Romania and analyzed resident sellers and Bulgarian exporters' distribution practices
- Participated in a business trip aiming to explore market of second hand vehicles and caravans in England
- Represented the company at 2 exhibitions in Bulgaria
- Understood the customer's needs and provided them with effective solutions
- Consulted customers into making the satisfying purchase choice
- Provides highest level of care to customers
- Keeping correspondence with clients
- Translation of documents
- Preparation of offers
- Monthly report costs of the company
- Worksites visits and meetings with technicians, providing translation
- Organizing transport of the machines
- Participation in the overall activities of the department of planning and achieving sales targets.
- Organize meetings with potential business clients, serve existing clients with different issues
- Data processing in ERP software and making sales reports.
- Worked in Sales, Supply & Logistics and Administration departments
- Took part in a business trip to Romania to research the market of lighting products
- Took part in a trip to England to explore the second hand vehicle market with the purpose of starting an additional business
- Visited two exhibitions in Milan, Italy
- Represented the company in 2 exhibitions in Bulgaria
- Supported the account management activities with foreign partners
- Understood the customer's needs and provided them with effective solutions
- Consulted customers into making the most satisfying purchase choice
- Supervising, scheduling, and managing household staff in multiple US properties.
- Maintaining household food, supplies, and in-home organizational systems.
- Scheduling appointments and calendar management for family.
- Bill paying and balancing personal checking accounts.
- Reconciling credit card statements. Organizing and tracking purchase receipts for both personal and home purchases.
- Event planning for parties, dinners, philanthropic events. Includes contracting with venues, managing caterers and vendors.
- Maintaining and organizing contacts database.
- Handling principals personal shopping, errands, and gift purchasing.
- Arranging extensive travel (domestic and international) including private flights. Creating detailed travel itineraries.
- – includes travel and entertainment reservations, interacting with travel agents.
- Coordinating and overseeing maintenance and repairs for multiple residences.
- Solely managed seven rental properties. Responsible for drafting leases, point of contact for all tenants, transferring properties into LLC's, managing rental income, and coordinating all ongoing maintenance and repairs.
- Researched, planned, and executed all aspects of his wedding. Directed venue staff and vendors on day of the event.
- As operations manager for his digital agency, my responsibilities include: interviewing and hiring web developers and designers, managing outsourced talent, business administration, scheduling/calendar management, and liaison to the accounting and billing departments.
- I've managed his personal finances, personal shopping, dog care, errands, and overseeing household staff.
- As a community manager of a music-based dating website, I wrote press releases and blog posts, acted as a point of contact to members, and planned a concert in Brooklyn with two indie rock bands and corporate sponsorship.
- Scheduling and managing travel: renewing passport, researching destinations, and booking flights and hotels.
- Managing email and google application accounts including analytics and Adwords. Basic front-end development using HTML5, CSS, and Java Script. Daily user of Trello, Slack, Toggl, and Zapier.
- Managed business finances, including: budgeting, purchasing, and accounts payable/receivable. Prepared payroll for five employees and in upwards of thirty independent contractors.
- Identified and vetted candidates for regular assistant pools in NYC. Conducted interviews and background checks for new assistant hires.
- Wrote and created assistant dossiers describing the character and experience of the assistants.
- Selected new office space, found corresponding sub-lesser for previous office, and coordinated all aspects of an office move.
- Successfully rented the owner's SoHo apartment. Steps included: scheduling moving company and storage, creating and posting ads, showing apartment, and executing lease.
- Scheduled and managed travel. Duties included: renewing passport, researching, booking travel and hotel, and scheduling cars and tours.
- Providing a high quality secretarial and organizational support service;
- Extensive diary management;
- Organizing business and travel arrangements;
- Producing reports, documents and presentations;
- Email monitoring;
- Coordinating external and internal meetings;
- Answering phone calls on behalf of my employer;
- Updating and maintaing key records, documents and database.
- Managed communications between actuarial staff in offshore office and the sales teams in Latin America to expedite transactions
- Coordinated the international sales conventions, and provided support to CEO and management team during the events
- Organised worldwide distributor training meetings, liaising directly with the local staff and venues
- Establishing brand and media presence
- Assisting with media relations (i.e. press releases, media advisories, pitching)
- Managing social media platforms
- Assisting with account management
- Perform all admin duties related to chairman including drafting and sending all business and personal emails on his behalf.
- Responsible for following up with foreign suppliers / personal payments related to chairman and his family.
- Assist in HR activities related to top management ( and On-boarding).
- Introduced IT channels to firm to help streamline operations.
- Managed to cut costs through better inventory tracking and management.
- Minimised contactors' turn over by negotiating better terms for them.
- Established office library and enhanced better record keeping practices and cataloguing.
- Successfully organized 2 major press briefings.
- Project Managed several major high profile events, such as BBC Festive Good Food Show, as well as developed Company template for all corporate involvement with outside clients. Acted as spokesperson.
- Managed all administration activities of the day-to-day business and all in house events. Acted as first point of contact for 100+ retail locations and team of 5 regional managers.
- Coordinated all operational activities of 2 Paris locations, including overseeing their closure.
PRO TIP
Make sure to relate your experience to your job description, but never lie. That’s not tolerated and will show up in the face-to-face interview later on.
Action verbs for your personal assistant resume
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Writing a strong skills section for your personal assistant resume
Checklist for your personal assistant skills section:
- Include all relevant skills from the job description to pass ATS;
- Focus on skills that show your expertise;
- List your technical skills in a clear and concise manner;
- Leave room for transferable skills related to teamwork, communication, negotiation, and conflict management.
Top skills for your personal assistant resume
ASANA
Notion
Scheduling tools
Email/letter writing
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
Adobe XD
Microsoft Office
After Effects
Communication
Planning and organisation
Prioritization
Efficiency
Responsibility
Problem-solving
Attention to detail
Customer service
Phone Etiquette
Discretion
PRO TIP
When picking skills to feature in your resume, make sure they'll be relevant to the position you’re applying to. The point of listing skills is for you to stand out from the competition. Stay away from repetitive, meaningless skills that everyone uses in their resumes. Or else, they’ll backfire and make you look like an average candidate.
Recommended reads.":
Personal assistant resume header: tips, red flags, and best practices
Checklist for your personal assistant resume header
- Your name and surname in a legible and larger resume font
- The job title you’re applying for or your current job title as a subheading to your name
- Link to your portfolio or online profile, such as LinkedIn
- Address (City and State for the US; just your city for rest of the world)
- Email address
- Headshot (required or welcomed in the EU; not required and sometimes frowned upon in the US)
Stick to popular email providers such as Gmail or Outlook. And use these professional formats to create your username:
- first.last@gmail.com
- last.first@gmail.com
- firstlast@gmail.com
- f.last@gmail.com
- first.l@gmail.com
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Some companies, states, and countries have policies about identifying information like photos on your Personal Assistant resume. Be sure to check all the relevant rules before submitting yours. If you’re in doubt, you can always try contacting the company’s HR department to ask for their policy.
The ideal summary for your personal assistant resume
Mastering the summary section: checklist
- Mention the total years of experience you have in the field;
- Focus on 2 to 3 of your top achievements;
- Highlight the things that make you the best fit for the position;
- Go for short, easy-to-read sentences to keep the recruiter’s attention.
Resume summary formula:
PRO TIP
Your summary section should act as a professional taster. Use it wisely. Effectively convey your professional profile and let the hiring manager know that if they hire you, they won’t be disappointed. Make sure to include keywords from the job description too! Elaborate on your abilities further in your experience section. Again, cater to the job description.
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Things to include in your personal assistant resume education section
Personal assistant resume education section checklist:
- Mention your highest education degree;
- Add the duration of your course and the institution you attended;
- List the awards you’ve received during your studies;
- Feature your certifications if they are relevant to the position;
- Entry-level positions: Share more about projects and classes.
Top certifications for your personal assistant resume
How to become a VIP personal assistant
The step by step plan to become a personal assistant from home or anywhere in the world
Becoming an Executive Personal Assistant
Learn how to be an effective personal assistant, and find out how to develop the skills for the role.
Personal Assistant (P.A.)
Office assistant
Must-Have Skills (Training) for Virtual Assistants in 2022
Get training for the most frequently requested services (+ free delegation eBook and TONS of templates and scripts).
Email Etiquette for Administrative Assistants - 2022 Edition
Learn to write clear and effective emails, gain more confidence, and be the best Admin you can be!
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
There are dozens of certifications that you can claim as a Personal Assistant. But, some are more effective than others. That’s why you mustn’t include every certificate other applicants might have. Try instead to earn and list a few of the difficult ones.
Formatting your personal assistant resume
What’s worse than a .docx resume? A resume with a poorly chosen format.
In general, there are three basic resume formats we advise you to stick with:
- Reverse-chronological resume format;
- Functional skills-based resume format;
- Combination (or Hybrid) resume format.
Choosing between them is easy when you’re aware of your applicant profile – it depends on your years of experience, the position you’re applying for, and whether you’re looking for an industry change or not.
The reverse-chronological resume format is just that – all your relevant jobs in reverse-chronological order. It’s great for applicants with lots of experience, no career gaps, and little desire for creativity.
When working with less experienced applicants, we suggest the functional skills-based resume format. It’s great for recent graduates or people with large career gaps. Functional skills-based resumes focus on your personality, the skills you have, your interests, and your education. Ultimately, the idea is to show you’re the perfect fit without putting too much emphasis on your work experience (or lack thereof).
If you’re in the middle or are generally looking to make your resume feel more modern and personal, go for the combination or hybrid resume format. It offers the best of both worlds by combining sections focused on experience and work-related skills and at the same time keeping space for projects, awards, certifications, or even creative sections like ‘my typical day’ and ‘my words to live by’.
Personal Assistant Resume Formatting Checklist
- Choose the resume format based on your level of experience and the company you’re applying for
- Go for a traditional 10-12p font
- Stick to 1-inch page margins to ensure high readability
- Match the length of your resume to your experience, but don’t go for more than two pages!
To take it a step further, check out how your resume can stand out without leaning too much on the creative side.
Recommended reads:
PRO TIP
Test your draft Personal Assistant resume by sending it out to peers and mentors in your circles. Ask them to review it as if they are hiring you for a project and implement the feedback afterwards.
Additional sections for your personal assistant resume
In some cases, especially when it comes to entry-level positions, adding more sections beyond the usual ‘experience’, ‘skills’, and ‘education’ works well in your favor. Such additional sections will help you paint a fuller picture of who you are in the recruiter’s head.
Here’s a list of fun yet informative additional sections for your resume:
Making your personal assistant resume creative
We know too well that recruiters go through tons of resumes every day. The worse part is, they often need to hire people for different positions and teams. So how do you make yourself stand out in such cases?
By adding a dash of creativity to your Personal Assistant resume. It can be in the form of a colorful layout, a section describing your typical day, or even a picture of your favorite book – you decide!
Just make sure that the levels of creativity match the industry, company, and position you’re applying for.
What makes a great personal assistant resume: key takeaways
- Choose a resume layout that sends the right message across and fits your current career situation;
- Create a resume header that shows your desired job title, and easy to find contact numbers;
- Be specific about your experience, accomplishments and future goals in your summary;
- Feature detailed metrics and specific examples that show the impact you made in your previous roles when describing your experience;
- List soft skills backed by examples;
- Add all of your technical skills and certifications that you have and match the job description;
- Show off a dash of personality in your resume that will demonstrate your culture fit and the right mix of hard and soft skills.
