Hiring an assistant - job description and rates?

[RedlineBrett]

My partner and I are planning on hiring our first staff member in early 2009.

The job title will be "administration/marketing manager."

We need this person to do the majority of our paperwork, track #s for our business, make calls, update our website with new content, filing, a plethora of marketing tasks related to sales, and essentially handle the small things that eat up our time and keep us away from sales work. With all the things I`d like to get off my plate I am finding the job description is a little all over the place and I`m not totally sure there are people out there to do what I need doing.

I would love to pick the brain of anyone that has made that `first hire` and what are reasonable things to expect of this person, and also where to find someone like who I"m looking for. What is a fair salary, work hour expectations things like that.

Also, I could probably use a little coaching on how to manage staff and ensure their continued development, happiness at work etc.

If you think you can help me out please send me an email or a PM!

Thanks!

 

[wgraham]

Brett,

not sure if you have done this yet but check out www.elance.com on here you will find virtual assistants, marketing professionals, web people, and bookkeepers. you may find this useful or at least let you make the transition to a full time employee.

good luck with your search!

Wade

 

[RedlineBrett]

Hi Wade,

Yes I`ve seen that site - we went over our needs and we want someone on the ground in Calgary. We may use a virtual service for some stuff though.

QUOTE (wgraham @ Nov 10 2008, 12:43 PM) Brett,

not sure if you have done this yet but check out www.elance.com on here you will find virtual assistants, marketing professionals, web people, and bookkeepers. you may find this useful or at least let you make the transition to a full time employee.

good luck with your search!

Wade

 

[Thomas Beyer]

$3000 to $4000/month base .. plus a SIZABLE bonus (say 20-40% of base !!) based on targets such as: revenue, $s raised, profit or any other measurable metric that can be paid quarterly or annually.

Consider IQ and EQ, i.e. fit with you and your customers.

 

[ChrisDavies]

I agree with Thomas, profit-sharing is a great idea. You want someone who is going to grow with you guys, and you want to empower them to grow and learn. Let them develop and determine the places where they can best help rather than dictating a job description.

 

[RedlineBrett]

Great post, thanks Thomas. Those numbers are about what I was expecting. We definitely wanted a bonus in there but weren`t quite sure how much.

What types of degrees or education do these types of employees typically have? We will want a licensed real estate assistant but that course is such a cakewalk I have no problem hiring someone else and paying for them to take the course.

Where is a good place to search for someone like this?


QUOTE (thomasbeyer2000 @ Nov 10 2008, 01:21 PM) $3000 to $4000/month base .. plus a SIZABLE bonus (say 20-40% of base !!) based on targets such as: revenue, $s raised, profit or any other measurable metric that can be paid quarterly or annually.

Consider IQ and EQ, i.e. fit with you and your customers.

 

[JohnS]

Hey Brett.
Are you familiar with the Kolbe test? I know a bunch of us on here have taken it and are big fans of it, so it might be something you`d want to look into.

Feel free to email me about it if you need more info, of course.

Have a good one!

JohnS

 

[Thomas Beyer]

QUOTE (RedlineBrett @ Nov 10 2008, 02:17 PM) Great post, thanks Thomas. Those numbers are about what I was expecting. We definitely wanted a bonus in there but weren`t quite sure how much.

What types of degrees or education do these types of employees typically have? We will want a licensed real estate assistant but that course is such a cakewalk I have no problem hiring someone else and paying for them to take the course.

Where is a good place to search for someone like this?
put an ad in the Herald or monster.ca .. with qualifications you desire .. MBA, BA, Mt. Royal .. some diploma at a minimum .. $22 to $28/h .. you`ll get some decent candidates .. ask yourself what kind of hours you need: 20h/week ? 40? 60 ? weekends ? travel ? calls @ 10 pm 2x/week ? some folks wish to work only 3-4 days / week as they have kids or only 4-6h/day .. this may suit your needs perfectly .. we have 2 such employees and they are wonderful !!

An ad such as:

Busy Calgary based real estate investment firm seeks

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

to facilitate and effectively manage call volume, deals, offers, customer inquires, billing, accounting,

Required skills: RE license and community diploma, friendly action taker, stress resistant, sales oriented
Desired skills: BA or CA, 5+ years office experience (or 10+ year mother)

Initially 25 h / week, later more, flexible hours

E-mail or fax your resume to XXXX with a description of your passion, life experiences and salary expectations !

 

[ChrisDavies]

I`m going to say you want someone with a degree. They`re going to be more useful in the long run.

I`d strongly suggest using LinkedIn because of the quality of the people on there. Someone you know will know someone, and you can post job ads if you want. (you can find me here http://www.linkedin.com/in/wchrisdavies)

And I`d post a base salary of $40k/year absolute minimum. You`ll get way more responses by putting a decent salary up and I`d be inclined to put "Starting wage of $55k, dependent on experience and qualifications." There`s always negotiation afterwards as no one will match 100% of what you`re looking for. ~2/3rds will be the best candidate.

 

[RedlineBrett]

No I haven`t heard of it. I googled it and it looks like some sort of survey\ management system or something. Was it useful for you and your business?

QUOTE (JohnS @ Nov 10 2008, 03:41 PM) Hey Brett.
Are you familiar with the Kolbe test? I know a bunch of us on here have taken it and are big fans of it, so it might be something you`d want to look into.

Feel free to email me about it if you need more info, of course.

Have a good one!

JohnS

 

[RedlineBrett]

Thanks again Thomas and Chris for your insights!

QUOTE (thomasbeyer2000 @ Nov 10 2008, 04:07 PM) put an ad in the Herald or monster.ca .. with qualifications you desire .. MBA, BA, Mt. Royal .. some diploma at a minimum .. $22 to $28/h .. you`ll get some decent candidates .. ask yourself what kind of hours you need: 20h/week ? 40? 60 ? weekends ? travel ? calls @ 10 pm 2x/week ? some folks wish to work only 3-4 days / week as they have kids or only 4-6h/day .. this may suit your needs perfectly .. we have 2 such employees and they are wonderful !!

An ad such as:

Busy Calgary based real estate investment firm seeks

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

to facilitate and effectively manage call volume, deals, offers, customer inquires, billing, accounting,

Required skills: RE license and community diploma, friendly action taker, stress resistant, sales oriented
Desired skills: BA or CA, 5+ years office experience (or 10+ year mother)

Initially 25 h / week, later more, flexible hours

E-mail or fax your resume to XXXX with a description of your passion, life experiences and salary expectations !

 

[jvmcdougall]

Hi Brett:

You`ll need to identify the scope and level of responsibility of the position before determining a salary range (you already know the geographic location, of course); if you send me a list of the details I`d be pleased to draft a job description for you (required skills, eduction, experience, etc.).


Cheers,
Jeanette
[email protected]

 

[Patrick]

QUOTE (RedlineBrett @ Nov 10 2008, 11:01 AM) My partner and I are planning on hiring our first staff member in early 2009.

The job title will be "administration/marketing manager."

We need this person to do the majority of our paperwork, track #s for our business, make calls, update our website with new content, filing, a plethora of marketing tasks related to sales, and essentially handle the small things that eat up our time and keep us away from sales work. With all the things I`d like to get off my plate I am finding the job description is a little all over the place and I`m not totally sure there are people out there to do what I need doing.

I would love to pick the brain of anyone that has made that `first hire` and what are reasonable things to expect of this person, and also where to find someone like who I"m looking for. What is a fair salary, work hour expectations things like that.

Also, I could probably use a little coaching on how to manage staff and ensure their continued development, happiness at work etc.

If you think you can help me out please send me an email or a PM!

Thanks!Brett
Some additional food for thought.

I understand you have only given a brief overview to what you require someone to do, however I would suggest that what you are describing here is essentially two positions.
The skill set required for administration tasks and marketing/website tasks are not a particularly common overlap.
I would encourage you to take the time it takes to go through the process of listing the details of what you need off your plate. And then categorizing them.
It will also help you to determine the time (hours per week) requirement.

Someone that has strong administration skills, fantastic phone mannerism, the ability to communicate with your book keeper, tenants, business associates, etc is invaluable. Their mindset is looking after the details and creating systems, and being organized and efficient, and supporting you to be even better at what you love to do and do best.

"A plethora of marketing tasks related to sales", mostly that is a different mindset than administration.
What are the details of what you require for that. This may be the outsource/e-commerce portion of what you require. For example website updates are easily outsourced. Tasks related to this require a creative mindset, sales driven. Inspired by a big bonus check.

Creating the right team is foundational in the growth of your business, and the significance of putting the right people in place cannot be overstated.
Being able to provide clarity during the interview process of what your expectations are for the position will help to provide you insights to know that the person you are interviewing can do the job. Hiring the wrong person and then having to put in the correction later is generally an experience that is best to try and avoid.

What I have learned is that people in general just want to clearly know what is expected of them, what their performance is being measured against, that what they do is relevant, and that their contribution to the success of the business matters.
Put people in a position that plays to their strengths and then support them to win.

Nice work asking for help btw.

 

[RedlineBrett]

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for your insights - lots of good info in there.

I know that the job description really frames two positions, however given our current level we simply don`t have enough volume to hire two people.

The hope would be that as our business grows this first role would split into two, but we will see how things progress.

We could sub out a number of things and we may yet do that, we will see how this person settles into the role and adjust as we see fit.

We definitely want to make a good first hire and with the help of the posts in this thread we are dialing in our ideal character traits/skill set.

Thanks again everyone!



QUOTE (patrickf @ Nov 16 2008, 11:28 AM) Brett
Some additional food for thought.

I understand you have only given a brief overview to what you require someone to do, however I would suggest that what you are describing here is essentially two positions.
The skill set required for administration tasks and marketing/website tasks are not a particularly common overlap.
I would encourage you to take the time it takes to go through the process of listing the details of what you need off your plate. And then categorizing them.
It will also help you to determine the time (hours per week) requirement.

Someone that has strong administration skills, fantastic phone mannerism, the ability to communicate with your book keeper, tenants, business associates, etc is invaluable. Their mindset is looking after the details and creating systems, and being organized and efficient, and supporting you to be even better at what you love to do and do best.

"A plethora of marketing tasks related to sales", mostly that is a different mindset than administration.
What are the details of what you require for that. This may be the outsource/e-commerce portion of what you require. For example website updates are easily outsourced. Tasks related to this require a creative mindset, sales driven. Inspired by a big bonus check.

Creating the right team is foundational in the growth of your business, and the significance of putting the right people in place cannot be overstated.
Being able to provide clarity during the interview process of what your expectations are for the position will help to provide you insights to know that the person you are interviewing can do the job. Hiring the wrong person and then having to put in the correction later is generally an experience that is best to try and avoid.

What I have learned is that people in general just want to clearly know what is expected of them, what their performance is being measured against, that what they do is relevant, and that their contribution to the success of the business matters.
Put people in a position that plays to their strengths and then support them to win.

Nice work asking for help btw.

 

[mcgregok]

You have two jobs. Write a job discription for each. Put a time for each job and when the job is to be done during the day.Develope a routine. This way you have a good idea if the job can be done during the day and when you can expect it done. When you interview prospects show them what the job routine entails and that it could be altered every so often if required but generally the job is what you say it is. The worst thing you can do is come in every day and dump work on their desks when they are busy. Make sure you also have your job discription and stick to it. Again don`t dump your overload on your employee. I split my dities to office manager and sales manager. My office manager had nothing to do with sales. The job of office manager ,processing the paper (trust accounting,collections,filing, handling all the realtors (copy work payroll etc)) was full time.

 

[ChrisDavies]

Also, you`ll come up with a list of 10 things they should do/have/be, and you`ll be lucky to find someone who covers more than 7 of them. Hire the right feeling person and train as you go.