Personal Assistant Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Personal Assistant resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Personal assistants are the best of both worlds: They’re part admin and part assistant, offering administrative support while also helping their boss with day-to-day tasks. Personal assistants can be found in all types of industries—from entertainment to finance to real estate—and work with high-profile clients who need help managing their busy schedules and keeping track of details large and small.
Before you can land a personal assistant job, you need an eye-catching resume that will convince hiring managers that you’re the right person for the job. Follow these tips and resume example to write a fantastic personal assistant resume that will land you interviews in no time.
How to Write a Personal Assistant Resume
Here’s how to write a personal assistant resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
When you’re writing bullet points, it can be tempting to focus on the tasks you performed. But that’s not always the most effective approach. Instead, you can use your bullet points to showcase your key responsibilities and the results of your work.
For example, rather than saying you “managed schedules and travel arrangements for executives,” you could say that you “managed schedules and travel arrangements for 15 executives, ensuring all schedules were properly synced and all travel arrangements were made according to company policy.”
The second bullet point paints a clearer picture of what exactly you did and how successful you were at it. And it also provides a quantifiable result (all schedules were properly synced).
Related: What Is a Personal Assistant? How to Become One
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are used by many companies to help manage the influx of resumes they receive. These programs scan your resume for specific keywords related to the job opening. If your resume doesn’t include enough of the right terms, the ATS might automatically reject your application.
One way to make sure your resume makes it past the ATS is to include keywords that are commonly found in personal assistant job postings. Here are a few examples:
- Personal Assistance
- Administrative Assistance
- Event Planning
- Social Media
- Event Management
- Time Management
- Customer Service
- Teamwork
- Office Administration
- Communication
- Project Management
- Public Speaking
- Microsoft Access
- Organization Skills
- Executive Administrative Assistance
- Human Resources (HR)
- Diary Management
- Coaching
- Travel Arrangements
- Research
- Travel Management
- Recruiting
- Employee Relations
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Executive Support
- Leadership
- Social Media Marketing
- Data Entry
- Sales
- Problem Solving
Showcase Your Technical Skills
Personal assistants use a variety of technology to manage their work, so it’s important to list any relevant technical skills you have. Programs like Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Google Suite (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar), and social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are all commonly used by personal assistants. Additionally, personal assistants may be called on to use specific software programs relevant to their industry, so it’s important to be familiar with as many programs as possible.
Related: How Much Does a Personal Assistant Make?
Remember The Basics
As you draft your resume, there are a few basic rules to keep in mind.
Make Your Resume Easy to Scan
There are a few things you can do to make your resume formatting easy for recruiters to scan and understand quickly. Left align all text, use standard fonts throughout, and use bullets rather than full paragraphs to list experiences. Keep bullets under two lines, and use digits for numbers. Finally, use white space on the page to make the resume less dense and more skimmable.
Be Concise
A resume should typically be one page long, unless you have a lot of experience to include. If you do need to go over one page, make sure to focus on the most relevant and recent experience. In general, you want to be succinct and get your point across quickly, so brevity is key.
Check Your Work
Proofreading your resume is essential to ensuring that it looks its best. There are a few key things to watch for: spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, and grammatical mistakes. You should also be aware of easily confused words, such as their/there/they’re and to/too/two. Spell checking your resume is a good start, but you should also have someone else proofread it for you to catch any mistakes that you may have missed.
Consider Including a Summary
A resume summary statement can be a great way to introduce yourself to potential employers and highlight the skills and experience you have that are most relevant to the role you are seeking. When writing your summary, be sure to play up your soft skills, mention your most highly transferable experiences, and clearly state your intentions. Keep it to just a couple of lines, and make sure it’s easy to read and understand.
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