Hello, everyone!!

My name is Kanan Sawa and this little star is my assistant. We are going to tell you about being a personal assistant (PA).

First, my Myers-Briggs test was ENFJ. This means that I’m good at counseling, psychology, social work, education, and so on. The reason why I picked up a personal assistant is that I want to enter the FIFA (Soccer Association) and it was recruiting for this job.

There are some famous examples of PAs. This guy is President Obama, of course, but do you know this guy? His name is Reggie Love, and he is a Obama’s personal assistant. He used to be an NBA player, but he changed careers to become a personal assistant.

Now, let’s talk about work conditions. Personal assistants normally work at companies, government agencies, and hospitals. They work about 40h per week and sometimes travel with their employers. Without doubt, PAs are on-call. If their employers need something, they have to go or do things for them. PAs have part-time opportunities, but it only with companies which don’t have enough money. Basically, they keep normal schedules but it depends on their employers.

Next, qualifications: PAs need excellent organisational, written, and spoken communication skills in addition to computer and administrative skills. Moreover, multi-tasking and working on your own initiative abilities are needed. PAs don’t have to have licenses, but if you have one, it will be advantageous. CPS (Certified professional Secretary) and CBS (Certified Bilingual Secretary) licences are two examples. In Japan, Hisho-kentei is the most common license. As I said before, anyone can be a PA, but there are some secretarial courses in schools that include shorthand, typing, word processing and computing skills.

Next, I want to introduce about the job outlook for PAs. I can say that PAs are and are not in demand. The reason is that the position is limited. PAs are needed by some directors of big companies, the central government, media, and local authorities. Therefore, if the economy is good and many PAs quit their job, then demand for the position increases.

Starting salaries for PAs are around $18,000 to $ 25,000 per year. I found that some PAs earn as much as $85,000 per year, so you have good experience and skills your salary will be higher.

There are many advantages to being a PA. PAs can perform big projects with their mangers. If the project succeed, they can feel great achievement from being part of the team. Moreover, PAs often realize that the manager needs them. Without PAs, managers may not be able to do anything. PAs have to follow their managers everywhere, so when managers go abroad, they can go with them. Similarly, they sometimes can have nice dinners. On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages. I mentioned it before as an advantage, but PAs have to follow their managers almost everywhere. This can be stressful because PAs are at the beck and call of their managers. In other words, PAs have little contorol over their own schedule.

My final impression about this PA job is that it seems very interesting. However, this job totally depends on the manager, so if the manager is not nice, I really do not want to be a PA. However, if the manager is nice, being a PA could be very exciting. Hopefully this helps you to understand more about PA career. If you want to get this kind of job, you should do it!