If your workload is getting too heavy for your team, it may be time to hire an intern or an assistant. When doing so, keep the following in mind:
Professionalism
If your new assistant will answer the phone, you want to make sure that this person has strong interpersonal skills and a professional tone of voice when speaking to callers. There should be no loud gum chewing and bubble popping or use of slang and profanity. Also, professionalism extends to the use of company time. An assistant should not be on Facebook or Instagram instead of asking what else you need help with. Make sure to request that references are checked, and put an emphasis on asking about productivity and professionalism. If you have no time to review the candidates background, and you want a hire that will understand how to balance efficiency with productivity, it may be time to call staffing and workforce solutions Alexandria VA.
Great Typing Skills
Require that your candidates take a typing test, especially if data entry, correspondence and drafting memos or reports will be responsibilities of the new hire. There’s a big difference in how fast someone drafts correspondence with 30 words-per-minute (WPM) speed compared to 80 WPM speed. In addition to typing well, it is important to have a good command on punctuation and grammar. A comma splice may not turn everyone off, but it can make some clients cringe. The candidate that you hire should be detail-oriented and have the ability to proof work and turn in polished documents.
Conscientiousness
An assistant’s job is to make your life easier. Even jobs such as photocopying and filing folders should be done with precision. It’s extremely frustrating to try to find a misplaced folder when the client is on the phone. It is also embarrassing if you find out that your assistant did not photocopy the 2-sided pages of a 100-page document that had both single and double-sided pages.
Many responsibilities can be taught, but these three traits are important for any new assistant.
