A personal assistant in a private household is closer to a chief of staff than to a corporate PA. They run the principal’s calendar, handle travel, and coordinate with household staff and suppliers. The family office, lawyers, and accountants come through them too. Nothing reaches the principal without going through them.
This page gives you a full example job description to use as a template when hiring. For everything else, see our personal assistant recruitment page. It covers what private PAs do day to day, the different types of PA roles, salaries by country, and how to hire one.
Example of a personal assistant job description
This is an example brief for a full-time personal assistant to a single principal in New York, with regular travel to a second home in the Hamptons and abroad. The role is hybrid, with one or two days a week of home office.
PA is one of the top five most requested roles we fill at Morgan & Mallet, and 80 to 90% of the briefs we see in the US are from entrepreneurs. That shapes the example below, a calendar that changes constantly, real authority to make decisions, and home office days built into the role.
About the role
A high-net-worth principal is hiring a personal assistant to run their schedule, travel, and personal life. The role covers personal admin, and crosses into the office side as well: the PA works with the principal’s executive assistant on the corporate end and with the house manager at home.
The PA reports directly to the principal. They’ll need to make decisions on their own, manage household staff schedules, and be the gatekeeper for everyone trying to reach the principal.
The role is full-time and live-out, with one or two days a week of home office.
Responsibilities
Calendar and gatekeeping
- Manage the principal’s calendar, often rebuilding it through the day as plans change
- Filter incoming requests from staff, vendors, family office, lawyers, and accountants
- Decide what’s worth the principal’s time and what isn’t, and brief them on what they need to see
Travel
- Book flights, hotels, transfers, and restaurants across multiple time zones
- Build full itineraries with backup options for delays or last-minute changes
- Coordinate with local contacts at each destination
Household and staff
- Coordinate with the house manager and household staff on schedules and the principal’s preferences
- Help with hiring household roles, sourcing candidates and running first interviews before a shortlist goes to the family office or principal
- Keep on top of personal errands, household purchases, and bill payments
Events and entertaining
- Plan and run private events, dinners, and house guest stays
- Brief vendors, staff, and the family on what’s happening before each event
- Handle the budgets and check the expenses afterwards
Requirements
Essential experience
- Minimum 5 years as a private PA, or in a senior corporate EA role that included personal admin
- Verifiable references from previous principals, executives, or family office heads
- Strong at managing calendars that change throughout the day, and travel coordination across time zones
- Comfortable with shared calendars, cloud documents, and task tools (Google Workspace, Outlook, Trello, Asana)
- Clean criminal background check
Personal qualities
- Absolute discretion (the PA will see bank statements, personal letters, and private correspondence)
- Strong judgment and confident making decisions on their own
- Calm under pressure when plans fall apart at short notice
- Comfortable attending events with the principal and able to hold a conversation in any room
- Fluent English; a second language is a strong plus
Work conditions
- Full-time, live-out
- Hybrid: one or two days a week of home office
- Standard hours of around 50 per week, longer when the principal’s schedule calls for it (evenings, weekends, late texts)
- Travel to the Hamptons home and on international trips, with travel expenses covered
- Health insurance, paid holiday, and a phone and laptop provided
- Salary based on experience
Common variations on this brief
Most PA briefs we work on look broadly like the example above. The three we see most often:
- Traveling PA. The PA goes wherever the principal goes, often spending weeks at a time at a different property. Some of our larger clients have four or five PAs each covering a different region.
- Family PA. The brief widens to cover children’s schools, activities, and pickups, plus household finances. It overlaps a lot with what a house manager does, and where the line falls depends on what the household already has.
- Celebrity or high-profile PA. NDAs are signed before the first interview, and the PA is on call around the clock. In our Los Angeles office, 77% of PA placements need NDAs.
Each one changes the brief enough that you’ll need to adapt the example above. Worth deciding which variation you’re closest to before you start writing.
Using this job description
If you’re using this as a starting point for your own hire,change the responsibilities and requirements sections to match your brief. The details that change things most are how much of the role is personal versus corporate, whether the PA travels with the principal, and whether they’ll have authority over other staff.
We place PAs in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Paris, Geneva, and Dubai. To talk through a brief or start a search, get in touch with one of our offices or call us on +1(646)965-2308 to talk to a recruitment consultant.Looking for a position as a personal assistant? Have a look through our live online jobs on the Morgan & Mallet job board.