Ask HN: I’d like to hire a personal/executive assistant – any tips or advice?
I hired one early this year through a &quot;virtual assistant&quot; company in the UK (Virtalent), as I don&#x27;t need enough help for a full time person to be sensible, and they did a nice job of matchmaking. I had an initial call with one of their folks who spent some time going through with me what I&#x27;d want done, and then they set me up with someone pre-screened who I had an intro call with and liked. I&#x27;d previously tried FancyHands, and that required way too much micromanaging on my part.<p>paulcole&#x27;s comment &quot;Are you really ready to stop doing the things you&#x27;re hiring this person to do?&quot; is a bit on the nose. Learning to let go and delegate is key.<p>The biggest value I&#x27;d say I get is outsourcing decisions that aren&#x27;t really important but are likely to cause my to spiral into &quot;analysis paralysis&quot;. For example, hiring movers - if I tried to do it myself I&#x27;d end up spending hours fussing over reviews.<p>Another major thing is figuring out things I hate doing (phoning people, filling out expense reports, etc) and let my PA handle them.<p>It&#x27;s also nice for me that she&#x27;s British (I&#x27;m an American expat living in the UK) and is fairly experienced as an PA&#x2F;EA and generally knows lots of things that I don&#x27;t know I don&#x27;t know. For example, when my partner and I wanted to have a special celebratory meal, she arranged a completely custom menu with a high-end restaurant, which didn&#x27;t occur to me as something that I could ask for.