Assistant Interview Questions for Your Next Hire
I’m hoping you might have one specific, extremely important, growth-oriented “action item” on your to-do list:
Hire an assistant!
Think of the possibilities if you were free of the paperwork and filing, figuring out how to run a meeting later, organizational tasks, marketing errands, and other miscellaneous activities that eat up so much of your time…
You’d be able to focus your efforts on your HBUTs – and as a result, you’d be able to create more revenue and enjoy your business (and life) much more!
Take It Up a Notch. Explore Our Real Estate Agent Tools, Resources, and Case Studies!
At Tom Ferry, our team has decades of experience helping realtors grow their businesses. Discover invaluable insights, customized strategies, and expert guidance to supercharge your lead generation, marketing, and more!
That’s why today I’m sharing some tips direct from our eTraining course, REal Assist, including 18 “must-ask” administrative assistant interview questions. REal Assist’s nine, highly informative modules are strategically split into two audiences to respect your time: Module 1 provides hiring tips for you, the agent, while the remaining eight modules are designed to train and “onboard” your new assistant without the need for your direct involvement.
Keep reading for my tips!
What Does a Real Estate Administrative Assistant Do?
Like a transaction coordinator, a real estate administrative assistant plays a crucial role in supporting real estate agents and brokers in their day-to-day operations. Their responsibilities typically include handling administrative tasks such as managing schedules, coordinating appointments, answering phone calls and emails, preparing documents and contracts, maintaining databases and filing systems, processing transactions, and assisting with marketing and advertising efforts. They may also perform research tasks, organize events and meetings, handle client inquiries and requests, and provide general office support to ensure smooth operations within the real estate team. Overall, real estate administrative assistants help streamline processes, improve efficiency, and contribute to the overall success of the real estate business.
Finding the Perfect Real Estate Assistant
Before I reveal the interview questions, let’s examine some important steps you want to take before beginning your search for the ideal assistant.
First off, you should identify the primary responsibilities you want your assistant to handle.
List out all your tasks, and then highlight in green the things you love to do, highlight in red the things you never want to do again, and highlight everything leftover in yellow. All of the red tasks just became your assistant’s primary responsibilities. Then as they progress in the role, you can add in some of the yellow-highlighted tasks.
Putting Feelers Out
Once you’ve identified what you want your assistant to do, it’s time to begin your search.
It’s always a good idea to ask around your personal network for a referral to help find a great candidate for the position. If you don’t find one that way, then it’s time to place ads on sites like Indeed.com or on social networks such as LinkedIn.
After an initial phone screening process, it’s time to bring in the best candidates for formal interviews.
18 Assistant Interview Questions
In the interview, be sure to ask these 18 questions:
- What are your skills?
- What are your strengths?
- Are you a positive person?
- What are your weaknesses?
- How would you stay on task?
- Why do you want this position?
- Are you organized and detailed?
- How well do you work with people?
- How are your communication skills?
- Do you have event planning experience?
- Do you see yourself in this position, why?
- How would you handle a stressful situation?
- What annoys you the most in the workplace?
- What is your experience in/with real estate?
- What real estate company do you know in the area?
- What did you learn from a mistake you made at your previous job?
- What are your goals for your life? Starting at 5 years, then 10-15 years and beyond.
- Tell me about your greatest professional accomplishment and how you achieved it.
These questions are just a tiny fraction of the content found in REal Assist, our just-released eTraining course that’s actually like two courses in one!
The first of nine modules is for you, the agent, and contains more information on how to identify your assistant’s role, write the perfect job description, locate, interview and hire. The remaining eight modules are geared specifically for your new hire, training them on the basics of real estate and providing a full “onboarding” process – saving you hours and hours of training time to quickly bring them up to speed.
We’ve helped scale the businesses of tens of thousands of real estate agents.
When you start with a free real estate coaching consultation, chances are we can help scale yours as well. Schedule yours today!
