Here at Bloom Talent, we have seen an increasing demand for hiring remote executive assistants over the last year. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend significantly, so we want to offer some helpful tips on how to best interview an executive assistant remotely. Many of these tips are based on our own experience conducting remote interviews as a partially remote team ourselves.
There are huge benefits of successfully hiring remote EA’s. It can be more cost effective, time efficient, and less overall management. Because executive assistants largely work behind the scenes, they can be just as effective while working remotely. There are many tools available today that allow EAs to be productive, organized, and in sync with their team even when they aren’t together in an office.
One concern we hear from clients is: “How do I know if this person is the right fit if I don’t meet them in-person?”
We understand this concern. Chemistry fit is essential in making a successful EA hire, but we have seen many clients successfully interview candidates remotely and feel that necessary “connection.” You will need to be intentional about the interview process, the type of questions you ask, and what to look for in order to feel that ‘connection’.
We believe now is a great time to invest in a remote executive assistant. Of course, if you are not ready to hire a remote EA, many of these tips should be generally useful for interviewing candidates that may work remotely from time to time. Offering some flexibility for any member of your team to work from home is becoming an important benefit to attract and keep the best talent.
Remote Interviewing
Assessing an EA for a remote position requires that you ask a different set of interview questions and format the interview differently than you would for a traditional in-office position. Ask yourself before starting the process what you need to know about the candidate to arrive at a strong YES in hiring them.
Prepare yourself to spend more time on video calls to get to know the candidate better. Suggest a more formal interview to start and then follow that with a more casual meeting (like you are going out for coffee or lunch) so that you can get the full picture of someone’s personality and skills. Another option is scheduling several video calls, addressing different topics (culture fit, aptitude, motivation, skill, etc) so you cover all your bases.
We also suggest incorporating an assignment midway through the process. This will help you visualize how they work.
Assessment Criteria
Are they self-motivated?
Can they work well outside of a structured environment and schedule?
Are they accountable?
Do they have strong communication skills?
Will they miss the social element of work and the camaraderie with coworkers?
Can they outline a successful framework to do this job remotely?
Remote Specific Questions
Working remotely is different than working in an office daily with peers. It is important you tailor questions that are specific to remote work so there are no surprises when this person is onboarded. We’ve included helpful questions below.
Candidates With Remote Experience
Tell me about yourself. What brings you to the interview? What excites you most about this EA position?
Why do you like to work remotely? What is your experience working remotely?
Can you share with me how you set yourself up for success working remotely? What does a successful remote-work set up look like to you? What benefit of remote working do you value most?
How have you built rapport and trust with an Executive remotely? Can you share some examples?
Share with me what the specific expectations were for the prior EA positions where you've worked remotely.
I've always found that the best remote team members are self-starters who are able to motivate themselves and work independently. How close is that to describing you? Can you give me an example of how you typically motivate yourself to feel engaged about your work?
What tools have you found helpful to stay organized and engaged while working remotely?
In your experience, is it more difficult to feel engaged if you're remote? If so, how have you successfully overcome that?
How do you feel successful in your role?
How do you anticipate communicating with your Manager and/or getting feedback when you are stuck on a project or action item?
Some leaders worry about being effective in a virtual environment because if they can't physically oversee what's happening, they can't know that work is getting done. How could you allay that concern?
How do you manage expectations around time?
Candidates Without Remote Experience
What interests you most about the possibility of working remotely?
What are your biggest concerns around being remote?
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages that you suspect may be at play by not sitting next to your co-workers and managers?
Most people don't have the organization, focus, or motivation to be productive working remotely. Successfully working from home is a skill that takes time and commitment. How do you see yourself succeeding in this if you've never done it before?
How do you anticipate building trust with your executive remotely?
Have you thought about a successful framework around organization and communication with your executive and what that will look like?
What tools do you plan to use to keep you organized and in sync with your executive?
Culture Fit Questions
As you move beyond questions on remote work, skill, and process, it is important to focus on culture fit questions. These can be asked in a more casual video call. You are trying to see if there is a personality/chemistry fit.
Share with me how you've maintained a sense of community and connectedness with your executive and co-workers. Did you have virtual and in-person meetings and get-togethers at your prior companies?
How have you established relationships and good communication with your co-workers to keep from feeling disconnected from the group?
How did you learn your executives preferences? What type of questions do you ask to get to know your executive better?
How often would you prefer to have feedback from me? What's the right amount of structure, direction, and feedback that allows you to be successful in your role?
Communication and accountability go hand in hand. How would you structure your communications with me to ensure so that I feel confident in your work and that you will meet and exceed expectations?
What most excites you in work? In life?
What surprises people about you?
What is one thing you want me to know about you?
General Questions
In any interview, these are good general questions to ask.
Give us an example of a time when you had to manage up.
What would you say is your greatest professional strength? How about your greatest professional weakness?
Tell me about a time you’ve worked on a project with vague guidelines that required research – how did you approach the project and meet objectives?
What is a project that made you the most proud?
Give me a specific example of a past mistake and how you learned from it?
Where would you like to grow within the role?
Remote Assignment Ideas
Midway through the interview process we recommend incorporating a take home assignment that exemplifies the work they will be doing. This is important because it will give you a strong sense of their writing, working, and organizational style. We’ve included some examples below.
Email Writing
Email writing prompts are good ways to assess writing style and tone. Assignments can include sample responses to internal team members, external meetings with other founders/executives and/or board members. Provide several prompts with different contexts for the EA to respond to. You could also ask them to ghostwrite an email on your behalf to get a sense of how they would go about this (keeping in mind they don’t know you well yet so this will get better over time.)
Short Research Project
Give a research project that is unique to you. It could be a simple task such as picking a restaurant for you and an important investor. It can appear simple but the intention of the assignment is to see how far the candidate goes to research you and your guest and to understand if you have preferences and dietary restrictions. How detail-oriented are they?
Long Research Project
A more time intensive project could include putting together a travel itinerary with complex logistics and reservations. How do they organize this information for you and how in-dept do they think through the details. A team offsite proposal is another option. This can require putting together a budget, a timeline, possible activities, and selecting several venues that fit your team’s offsite agenda. A key component of this exercise is to see what sort of questions they have for you throughout the process so you can understand how they gather information.
Check References
Checking credible backchannels and references should provide strong reassurance this candidate is capable of working remotely.
Final Assessment
If the candidate has checked all the boxes but you’re finding there is still some hesitation, a good final step, depending on the candidate’s availability, is to do a working trial. This could include a one day working trial or up to a week. This will allow you to virtually see how you work together. A working interview is asking a prospective candidate to actually work as they would in the job so be prepared to pay this candidate for their time.
Hire the Candidate!
We have an additional resource document on how to onboard a new EA. If this interests you, please let us know and we will send it over.