Free Personal Assistant Job Description Templates
Free personal assistant job description templates: standard, executive, virtual, part-time, and household. FLSA and NDA notes built in. Download as DOCX.
Personal Assistant Job Description Templates
5 free templates by type. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
The personal assistant job description is one most owners copy from a generic template that quietly assumes either a corporate setting or a celebrity household, neither of which fits a founder hiring their first PA. The thin one-pagers online list calendar and travel duties and skip the two things that actually matter for this hire: getting the overtime classification right, since most personal assistants are non-exempt, and the confidentiality the role genuinely requires, since a PA ends up seeing almost everything.
At FirstHR, we build for small businesses that hire without an HR department, and a founder hiring a personal assistant is a textbook case: it is a high-trust role, the FLSA classification is easy to get wrong, and an NDA belongs in the hire. The five templates below cover the role by type: standard, executive, virtual, part-time, and household. Fill in the brackets and post. For the principles behind any posting, the guide to writing a job description covers the fundamentals.
What Is a Personal Assistant?
A personal assistant provides day-to-day administrative and personal support to a business owner, founder, or executive: managing the calendar, handling correspondence, coordinating travel, running errands, and keeping things organized. In federal occupational data the closest category is secretaries and administrative assistants, which covers the administrative-support work at the core of the role.
The role splits into two broad types that are worth distinguishing before you hire: a business personal assistant supporting a founder or executive, and a household assistant supporting a private employer with personal and family logistics. The scope also varies by arrangement, executive, virtual, or part-time, which is why one generic template rarely fits, and why the five templates on this page split by type so the summary, duties, and compliance match the actual hire.
Personal Assistant Duties and Responsibilities
Personal assistant duties and responsibilities center on four areas: scheduling and calendar, communication, travel and logistics, and organization and discretion. The type shifts the emphasis, gatekeeping for an executive PA, errands for a household one, but these four categories hold across nearly every personal assistant role. These are the duties grouped the way the templates use them.
A strong posting grounds these in your specifics: the person supported, the mix of business and personal tasks, the hours, and the tools used. For a structured way to scope any role before posting, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through the process.
Personal Assistant vs Executive Assistant
Assistant roles overlap, and naming the right one keeps your posting accurate. Here is how the most-confused roles relate, which decides which template you need.
| Role | Supports | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Assistant | One individual (work + personal) | Calendar, errands, travel, discretion |
| Executive Assistant | A senior executive (professional) | Gatekeeping, judgment, coordination |
| Administrative Assistant | An office, team, or department | General admin and front-office support |
| Virtual Assistant | One person or business, remotely | Remote admin and online tasks |
In a small business these blur, and a founder's assistant is often a hybrid. For the adjacent roles, the administrative assistant job description templates cover office support, the office manager templates cover broader operations, and a receptionist handles front-desk and reception duties.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template by who you are and the support you need. All five share the same skeleton, but each one emphasizes the duties, hours, and compliance that fit a specific kind of PA. Use this guide to choose.
5 Free Personal Assistant Job Description Templates
Download all five as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each follows the same structure: job summary, key responsibilities, qualifications, and compensation and how to apply. Fill in the brackets and confirm the FLSA classification before you post the pay.
Template 1: Standard Personal Assistant
The base version for a business owner: calendar, correspondence, travel, errands, and organization, blending admin and personal support. Start here if no specialized version fits.
Template 2: Executive Personal Assistant (PA to Founder / CEO)
The high-trust version: gatekeeping, complex calendars, stakeholder coordination, and independent judgment, with a required NDA and an FLSA classification note for senior-executive support.
Template 3: Virtual / Remote Personal Assistant
The remote version: cloud tools, async communication, time-zone overlap, and a built-in employee-versus-contractor and data-security note for a remote PA.
Template 4: Part-Time Personal Assistant
The part-time version: explicit hours, hourly pay, and a non-exempt overtime note for a flexible, under-40-hours-a-week assistant supporting a busy owner.
Template 5: Personal / Household Assistant (Private Employer)
The household version: errands, family logistics, and vendor coordination for a private employer, with a strong NDA and background-check disclosure for a personal household role.
Skills to Look For
Personal assistant skills weight organization, communication, and discretion over formal credentials. Keep the requirements concrete, and separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.
| Weak requirement | Strong requirement |
|---|---|
| Organized | Manages a calendar and competing priorities reliably |
| Good communicator | Handles correspondence and gatekeeping professionally |
| Trustworthy | Handles confidential information with discretion |
| Tech-savvy | Proficient in Google Workspace or Microsoft Office |
| Some experience | Administrative or assistant experience for the level |
The qualities that matter most are reliability, judgment, and discretion, since a PA touches sensitive information daily. Keep the language neutral and job-related, since the EEOC prohibits job advertisements that show a preference based on protected characteristics. For a fuller framework, the SHRM guide to writing a job description covers the standard sections.
Personal Assistant Salary
Personal assistant pay varies widely by scope, level, and location, but federal data for the closest occupational category gives a reliable center for setting a range.
Scope drives the spread: an executive personal assistant to a founder sits well above the median, a part-time PA is paid hourly, and a virtual PA varies by arrangement. These are the most recent confirmed federal estimates, useful as a baseline you adjust for the role and local market. Confirm the FLSA classification before setting a salary, since most PAs are non-exempt and owed overtime.
Exempt or Non-Exempt? FLSA Rules for Personal Assistants
Most personal assistants are non-exempt and owed overtime, and assuming a salaried PA is automatically exempt is a common and costly mistake. Exempt status depends on duties and salary, not the job title.
The practical takeaway is to classify the role against its actual duties and salary before you post the pay, not by the title. A part-time or standard PA is almost always non-exempt and hourly; a true executive assistant with delegated authority may be exempt. Check your state too, since several set higher thresholds than the federal floor, and verify the current rule since it can change.
How to Write a Personal Assistant Job Description
A strong PA posting takes about ten minutes once you settle the type, the duties, the classification, and the pay. Here is the process the templates are built around. If you are building out your team, the small business hiring guide covers the steps around the posting itself.
Hiring Your First Personal Assistant
A large company hires a PA through an HR team that handles classification, confidentiality, and screening. A founder or small-business owner makes the same hire directly, often for the first time, and the easy parts to miss are exactly the ones that carry risk. Here is how to do it well.
After You Hire: Onboarding a Personal Assistant
Personal assistant onboarding combines standard new-hire steps with a confidentiality step, since the role touches sensitive information from day one. The basics come first: the offer with the pay and FLSA classification stated, the I-9 completed within three business days, tax forms, and state new-hire reporting. Because a PA handles your calendar, finances, and personal information, the NDA is typically signed at this stage too, and any background check should be properly disclosed and consented to. Then comes a quick orientation on your tools, calendar, preferences, and how you work. For the broader flow, the new hire paperwork guide covers the documents and the onboarding checklist template covers the first weeks.
The documents around the hire follow the usual sequence: the offer letter template for the terms, with the job description often attached as an exhibit to the employment contract template.
FirstHR fits this directly: e-signature for the offer letter and the NDA, document management to store the signed NDA and the job description as an exhibit to the employment agreement, training assignments with completion records for tools and processes, and an HRIS with employee profiles, all built for small businesses without an HR department. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR; today the platform handles onboarding and document tracking once the candidate signs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a personal assistant do?
A personal assistant provides day-to-day administrative and personal support to a business owner, founder, or executive. The core duties are managing the calendar and scheduling, handling email and correspondence, coordinating travel and logistics, running errands, organizing documents and information, and handling confidential matters with discretion. A personal assistant essentially frees up the person they support to focus on higher-value work by taking everything else off their plate. The exact mix shifts by role: a business PA leans toward calendar, correspondence, and travel, while a household assistant leans toward errands and family logistics. In every version, organization, reliability, and discretion are the heart of the job, since a PA touches almost every part of the person's schedule and information.
What is the difference between a personal assistant and an executive assistant?
The roles overlap, but there is a rough distinction. A personal assistant supports one individual across both work and personal matters, often blending business tasks with errands and personal logistics. An executive assistant supports a senior executive in a primarily professional capacity: managing the calendar, gatekeeping, coordinating with the leadership team, and often exercising independent judgment on business matters. In a small business the line blurs, and a founder's assistant is frequently a hybrid, which is why the executive personal assistant template here covers that founder-or-CEO case. The practical difference for hiring is scope and judgment: an executive assistant is more likely to handle matters of significance independently, which also affects how the role is classified under overtime law.
Is a personal assistant exempt or non-exempt under the FLSA?
Most personal assistants are non-exempt, meaning they are entitled to overtime for hours worked over 40 in a week. Exempt status is not automatic and does not depend on the title or a salary alone. The administrative exemption applies only if the role's primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance, and the salary is at least $684 per week, which is $35,568 per year. A senior executive assistant who has been delegated real authority may qualify, but a personal assistant doing scheduling, correspondence, and errands generally does not. Classify the role against its actual duties and salary, not the job title, before you post the pay. Several states set higher salary thresholds than the federal floor, so check your state rules as well, and verify the current threshold since it can change.
What should a personal assistant job description include?
A strong personal assistant job description includes a clear job summary, key responsibilities, required skills, the employment type and hours, the FLSA classification, the pay range, and how to apply, all matched to the kind of PA you need. List the concrete duties: calendar management, correspondence, travel coordination, errands, and organization. Because the role spans business and household, executive and part-time, match the posting to your situation rather than using a generic boilerplate. State the confidentiality expectation, since a PA handles sensitive information, and note whether an NDA is required. Classify exempt versus non-exempt carefully against the duties and salary, and give an honest pay range, since several states require it. The templates on this page are each written for a specific PA type, including a small-business and an executive version.
How much should I pay a personal assistant?
Federal data offers an anchor through the closest occupational category. The median annual wage for secretaries and administrative assistants was about $47,460 in May 2024, roughly $22.82 per hour, with the lowest 10 percent under about $33,840 and the highest 10 percent over about $76,550. Personal assistant pay varies widely by scope, location, and whether the role is full-time, part-time, or executive level. An executive personal assistant to a founder commands well above the median, a part-time PA is paid hourly, and a virtual PA varies by arrangement. For a small business, anchor on your local market and the scope of the role, set an honest range, and state it in the posting. Confirm the FLSA classification before setting a salary, since most PAs are non-exempt and owed overtime.
Does a personal assistant need to sign an NDA?
It is strongly advisable, because a personal assistant has access to sensitive information: your calendar, inbox, finances, travel, and often personal and family details. The standard protection is a nondisclosure agreement signed at hire, usually a one-way NDA where the employer is the party disclosing confidential information. For an executive or household PA, who sees even more, an NDA is essentially expected. State the confidentiality requirement in the job description so candidates know it is part of the role, and have the NDA signed during onboarding alongside the offer letter. An NDA does not replace good judgment in what you share, but it sets a clear expectation and gives you recourse. It is one of the few protections that is far easier to put in place at hire than to add later.
Can a personal assistant work remotely?
Yes, virtual or remote personal assistants are common, especially for founders and small businesses that do not need on-site help. A remote PA handles calendar, inbox, scheduling, travel, research, and online tasks using cloud tools, communicating on an agreed schedule. The main things to settle up front are the expected time-zone overlap, the communication tools and response expectations, data security on the assistant's devices, and whether the person is a W-2 employee or an independent contractor, since misclassifying an employee as a contractor carries real risk. The virtual template here includes a classification and data-security note for exactly this reason. A remote arrangement works well when the scope is clearly defined and the assistant is self-directed and reliable without on-site supervision.
What is the difference between a personal assistant and an administrative assistant?
An administrative assistant supports an office, team, or department with general administrative work: scheduling, documents, data entry, and front-office support. A personal assistant supports one specific individual, often a founder or executive, across both their work and sometimes personal matters, with a closer, more trusted relationship. The administrative assistant role is more office-and-process focused, while the personal assistant role is more person-focused and discretion-heavy. In a small business one person may cover both, and titles are used loosely. When you post, decide whether you need someone supporting the office broadly or someone dedicated to one person's schedule and needs, since the relationship, scope, and confidentiality expectations differ between the two roles.
What happens after I hire a personal assistant?
Once a candidate accepts, the hire moves into onboarding, which for a high-trust role has an extra confidentiality step. The first steps are the offer and paperwork: the offer letter with the pay and FLSA classification stated, the I-9 completed within three business days, tax forms, and state new-hire reporting. Because a PA handles sensitive information, the NDA is typically signed at this stage too, and any background check should be properly disclosed and consented to. Then comes a quick orientation on your tools, calendar, preferences, and how you like to work. FirstHR fits this directly: e-signature for the offer letter and the NDA, document management to store the signed NDA and the job description as an exhibit to the employment agreement, training assignments with completion tracking for tools and processes, and an HRIS with employee profiles, all built for small businesses without an HR department. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR; today the platform handles onboarding and document tracking once the candidate signs.