When you hire a real estate executive assistant, you get to delegate your office tasks to an administrative professional, which frees you up to focus on income-generating activities for your business. You know you’re ready for an assistant when you are too busy with office tasks to focus on your lead generation.
And it’s not always just office tasks. The lines between work and personal life get blurred as a real estate agent or broker. Your executive assistant can help you with personal life items like sending gifts, getting quotes for work needed to be done around your home, or picking up dry cleaning.
That’s one of the key benefits of hiring a real estate executive assistant; you can tailor the role to your needs. Unlike administrative assistants, who typically work exclusively on office tasks, and personal assistants, who typically focus on personal tasks, executive assistants can work with both. You just need to be clear about responsibilities upfront.
But how do you hire one?
Here is how to hire a real estate executive assistant in five easy steps.
How to Hire a Real Estate Executive Assistant in 5 Steps
Before we get into the steps, one important note: You can do all five steps on your own, but if you’re busy, there is a helpful shortcut available. The Real Estate Executive Assistant Hiring Kit on Etsy is a super affordable tool kit that covers each of the steps coming up. Of course you can hire an assistant without it, but it will save you a ton of time and effort!
Ok, on to step one…
Step 1: Determine Your Needs and Budget
What do you need from your executive assistant? And how much can you afford to pay them?
Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you decide what you need from your assistant:
- Can all of the assistant’s tasks be done remotely? If so, you can consider a virtual assistant (VA), rather than an in-office assistant.
- Is real estate experience necessary? You can train assistants with no industry experience. Or you can insist on an assistant who already has experience (although this might be harder to find and more expensive to hire).
- Will your assistant need a real estate license? If you need your assistant to handle aspects of real estate transactions (like showings), they need to be licensed.
- How much work will you have for them? This will determine if you need a part-time assistant or full-time assistant.
- What tasks will you need your real estate executive assistant to complete for you? You can sit down and list everything you can think of. Or you can use the comprehensive task list in the Real Estate Executive Assistant Hiring Kit.
- How will you pay your assistant? Hourly? Salary? Will your assistant be an employee or an independent contractor? In the most general terms, hourly contractors are the most affordable, but salaried employees attract the best talent.
Step 2: Advertise for Your Real Estate Executive Assistant
Before you pay to post a job listing, ask your network for referrals. You can post on social sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Insta, and Twitter to ask your followers if they are looking for a new opportunity as a real estate executive assistant (or if they know someone else who is).
If that doesn’t yield any candidates, you can post a formal job listing on sites like:
- Craig’s List
- Indeed
- Monster
- Select Leaders
- iHireRealEstate
Your listing should include requirements, responsibilities, and instructions for applying.
Side note: the Real Estate Executive Assistant Hiring Kit on Etsy includes verbiage for your job posting.
Step 3: Interview Candidates
As you review resumes, pay attention to longevity at other jobs, promotions, and responsibilities that indicate strong organization, customer service, and attention to detail. Experience in real estate may
Here are 10 of the best interview questions to ask real estate assistants:
- What experience do you have in real estate?
- Why do you want to work in real estate?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- What would your last employer say are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Do you work better alone or with a team?
- How do you organize and prioritize your work?
- How do you ensure the quality of your work?
- When is the last time you’ve been professionally challenged, and what were the results?
- What are your professional goals?
- What is your availability like? Are you available on nights, weekends, and evenings?
Step 4: Make an Offer
After evaluating your candidates, it’s time to select your new real estate assistant and make an offer. Your offer should include:
- Job title,
- Pay rate,
- Benefits,
- Responsibilities,
- Start date, and
- Method for accepting the offer.
At this point, there may be some negotiating over salary or benefits. The desire to negotiate can actually be a good sign that your candidate is serious about being in this position longer-term and feels that they will be a valuable contributor to your team.
When the specific terms have been agreed on, you should draft an employment contract (or freelancer contract, as the case may be) for both parties to sign. And, yes, the Real Estate Executive Assistant Hiring Kit on Etsy includes sample contracts as well!
Then it’s official! You have your new real estate assistant, and you’re ready to board them!
Step 5: Onboard Your New Real Estate Executive Assistant
Onboarding is all about setting up your new real estate assistant for success in your real estate business.
Through the onboarding process, you will let your new assistant know exactly what is expected from them on a day-by-day basis. And you’ll explain the details of how they’ll do their job. You’ll also get the chance to build rapport, which will help you work well together.
The basic elements of an onboarding packet include:
- Important policies to explain how you do things,
- Ethical practices
- Zero-tolerance harassment policy
- Licensure law
- Confidentiality
- Accountability
- Dress code
- Tasks lists to remind your new real estate executive assistant what is due when. It’s helpful to offer a task breakdown by day, week, month, and as-needed. This will help your new assistant work more independently.
- A 5-Day Plan to help them get up and running quickly.
- Day 1: Introduction Day (paperwork and intro to the office, your systems, your colleagues, your clients, and your properties)
- Day 2: Groundwork Day (phone training, file management, mail processing, etc)
- Day 3: Systems Training Day (MLS, CRM, website, etc)
- Day 4: Social Media Day (complete training on how to handle social media accounts)
- Day 5: And the Rest… (the odds and ends, including marketing materials, advertising, and client meeting prep)
As you may have guessed, the complete onboarding packet is included in the Real Estate Executive Assistant Hiring Kit on Etsy as well!
Get a Small Win!
Great victories are the results of small wins. Before you move on with the rest of your day, get a small win.
Today’s small win challenge is to start the process of hiring your real estate executive assistant by determining your needs and budget. Walk through the questions from Step 1 today, and you’ll be ready to publish your job posting tomorrow!
