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Contents
What Matters Most
What This Resume Gets Right
How to Write a Personal Assistant Resume
Key Sections for a Personal Assistant Resume
Personal Assistant Resume Summary Examples
Personal Assistant Work Experience Examples
Skills for a Personal Assistant Resume
Personal Assistant Certifications
Personal Assistant Salary Expectations
Personal Assistant Resume Mistakes to Avoid
Frequently Asked Questions
Summary
Executive personal assistant with nine years supporting C-suite leaders, the last five as PA to the CEO of a financial-services firm in London. Is the trusted right hand who makes an executive's day work — owning a complex diary, gatekeeping time, arranging travel, preparing meetings and papers, and handling confidential matters with absolute discretion. Freed up significant executive time through ruthless diary and inbox management and ran flawless board and travel logistics. Manages diaries and inboxes, arranges complex travel, prepares meetings and documents, handles confidential information, and acts as a trusted gatekeeper. Discreet, organised and unflappable. Looking for an executive-PA or chief-of-staff-track role supporting a senior leader who needs a genuinely trusted right hand.
Work Experience
Executive Personal Assistant to the CEO
London Financial Services, London, UK
Jan 2019 – Present
- Be the trusted right hand who makes the CEO's day work, handling confidential matters with absolute discretion.
- Freed up significant executive time through ruthless diary and inbox management and ran flawless board logistics.
- Own a complex, constantly shifting diary, protecting the CEO's time and resolving conflicting priorities calmly.
- Arrange complex international travel, building itineraries that hold together even when plans change last minute.
- Prepare meetings, agendas and board papers, so the CEO walks into every meeting fully briefed and ready.
- Gatekeep access and handle sensitive information, being the discreet, dependable filter around a senior leader.
Personal Assistant
UK Corporate Group, London, UK
Feb 2014 – Dec 2018
- Supported senior executives with diaries, travel and administration, building executive-support skills over years.
- Managed schedules and confidential work, developing the discretion and organisation a CEO PA demands.
- Learned diary management, travel and executive communication on the job across nearly five years.
- Gained the experience and trust that led into a PA-to-the-CEO role of my own.
Education
BA in Business Administration, Business Administration
King's College London
Sep 2010 – Jun 2013
- Degree in business administration covering management, communication and organisation, with a placement. The programme built the professional and organisational foundation supporting senior executives requires. It led into PA work.
Executive PA Diploma, Executive Support
Institute of Administrative Management
Aug 2013 – Jan 2014
- Diploma in executive assistance covering diary and travel management, communication and discretion to a recognised standard. It sharpened the executive-support toolkit. It supported managing the complex demands on a senior leader.
Highlights
Gave the CEO time back
- Freed up significant executive time through ruthless diary and inbox management. A CEO's time is the scarcest resource in the company, so protecting and multiplying it is the most valuable thing a PA can do.
Flawless board logistics
- Ran flawless board-meeting and travel logistics with nothing slipping. When the CEO and board can rely on every paper, slot and itinerary being right, they can focus entirely on the decisions that matter.
Certifications
Executive PA Diploma
Institute of Administrative Management
Jan 2014 – Present
- Diploma in executive assistance covering diary and travel management, communication and discretion to a recognised standard, which sharpened the executive-support toolkit and supports managing the complex demands on a senior leader.
Recognition
A genuinely trusted right hand
- Trusted by the CEO with the most confidential matters and the smooth running of their working life, relied on as the discreet, capable right hand that lets a senior leader operate at their best.
Languages
- English (UK) — Native or Bilingual Proficiency
- French — Professional Working Proficiency
Technical Skills
- Diary Management
- Inbox & Gatekeeping
- Complex Travel
- Meeting & Board Prep
- Confidentiality
- Document Preparation
- Event Coordination
- Stakeholder Liaison
- Prioritisation
- Office Software
Personal Skills
- Discretion
- Organisation
- Calm Under Pressure
- Anticipation
- Communication
Activities & Interests
- Grow Moustache
- Newspaper
- Gossips
- Play Violin
- Poker
What Matters Most
Read these before you start drafting. They are the things that decide a PA shortlist:
- Name the principal by seniority and the length of the relationship. Five years as PA to one chief executive carries more weight than nine years supporting a rotating cast.
- Show the breadth of what you cover for that one person, including the personal side if the role included it: household staff, family travel, private appointments, personal accounts.
- Discretion has to be demonstrated, not claimed. Reference the categories of confidential material you handled, such as board papers, remuneration data or family matters, without disclosing anything.
- Complex travel is the classic PA proof point. Multi-leg international itineraries with visas, ground transport and time-zone-aware scheduling separate a PA from a diary administrator.
- Quantify the time you gave back. Hours protected per week, meetings declined or delegated, inbox volume triaged, and the percentage of the diary you rebuilt during a typical week.
- Prove you acted as the principal's proxy: who you spoke to on their behalf, what you were authorised to decide alone, and how you handled a conflict without escalating it.
What This Resume Gets Right
The sample belongs to an executive personal assistant supporting the chief executive of a London financial services firm. These are the structural decisions worth borrowing.
- The summary fixes the relationship first: nine years supporting C-suite leaders, five of them as PA to one named seat. A reader instantly knows this is single-principal support, not a shared pool.
- It uses the phrase trusted right hand and then earns it with concrete duties (gatekeeping, board papers, confidential matters) rather than leaving trust as an unsupported claim.
- The current role's bullets are written around the principal's day, not around office processes, which is the tonal difference between a PA resume and an office manager's.
- Confidentiality is given its own bullet and its own highlight rather than being folded into a soft skills list, matching how seriously a hiring principal treats it.
- The earlier PA role is condensed into four progression lines, so the page weight sits with the CEO-facing years where the trust was built.
- French at professional working proficiency is kept in, which is a genuine differentiator for a PA arranging European travel and fielding calls on a principal's behalf.
How to Write a Personal Assistant Resume
Six moves that turn a list of duties into evidence a principal can trust:
How do you describe who you support without naming names?
Describe the seat, not the person. PA to the chief executive of a 400-person asset manager, or private PA to the founder of a family investment office, gives a reader the seniority, the sector and the scale while protecting your principal's privacy. Add the reporting relationship if it is unusual, such as supporting the principal and their spouse, or covering two co-founders.
What should a PA resume say about diary management?
Move past managing a busy diary to the mechanics. Say how many meeting requests you triaged weekly, what your declining criteria were, how far ahead you protected thinking time, and how you rebuilt a day when a board meeting overran. A line about holding two hours of uninterrupted time every morning and defending it against everyone below director level says more than any adjective.
How do you show discretion on paper?
Name the categories, never the content. Handled board papers, remuneration reviews, legal correspondence and family medical appointments tells a reader precisely how sensitive your remit was without breaching anything. If you signed an NDA or handled market-sensitive information under a closed period, say so, because that is a compliance fact a hiring principal will want.
Should a PA resume include personal and household work?
Include it when the role genuinely blended the two, because it is what distinguishes a PA from a business-only assistant. School runs coordinated with a driver, private travel for a family of five, household contractors and staff rotas, personal bill payment and expense reconciliation are all real work. Group them under a private support heading so the business scope stays readable.
How do you write travel experience for a PA role?
Show the complexity, not the destinations. A twelve-day itinerary across four countries with three visas, a private charter leg, ground transport in each city and a fully briefed daily pack is a hard credential. Add what you did when it broke, since recovering a cancelled connection and reassembling a day of meetings is the moment a principal remembers.
{TIP}
What proves you can act as the principal's proxy?
Give the boundary of your authority. Say whether you spoke to board members, investors, clients or family on their behalf, what you could commit to unilaterally, and what always came back for a decision. Approved diary commitments up to board level without referral, and drafted correspondence issued under the CEO's name, both describe genuine delegated authority.
Key Sections for a Personal Assistant Resume
A PA resume needs a slightly different set of blocks from a general administrative one:
If you would rather assemble this quickly and keep the formatting clean for an agency portal, you can build it in our free online resume builder and export a tidy PDF.
A principal line under your job title giving the seat you supported, the organisation size or sector, and how long the relationship lasted.
A scope block splitting business support from private support if your role covered both, so a reader can see the balance at a glance.
Travel credentials, including the regions you routinely booked, visa handling, private aviation experience and any corporate travel platforms you worked in.
Systems you live in: Outlook or Google Workspace at power-user level, expense tools such as Concur or Pleo, board portals such as Diligent or Boardvantage, and any CRM or contacts database you maintained.
A confidentiality note covering the categories of sensitive material handled and any NDA or regulatory obligations you worked under.
Languages with honest proficiency levels, since a PA fielding calls and correspondence for an international principal is often screened on this alone.
References framed carefully. Many PA roles are filled on personal recommendation, so note that references from previous principals are available rather than listing contact details.
Personal Assistant Resume Summary Examples
Three summaries covering different kinds of PA role, deliberately different from the sample's corporate CEO support:
Entry-level resume summary example
Personal assistant with three years supporting a managing partner at a twelve-person architecture practice, having stepped up from a team administrator role. Owns the partner's diary, inbox triage and all UK and European travel, and prepares client packs ahead of every project meeting. Rebuilt a chronically overbooked calendar into a structured week with protected design time, which cut same-day meeting cancellations from around six a month to one. Handles client correspondence under the partner's name, manages practice expenses through Xero, and coordinates the partner's personal appointments and family travel alongside the business diary. Fluent in Spanish and used regularly on Iberian project calls. Looking for a first full PA role with a founder or executive who needs one dependable point of contact.
Mid-level resume summary example
Private personal assistant with seven years supporting a single principal across a family investment office and a private household in Geneva and London. Runs a diary that mixes board seats, philanthropic commitments and family life, manages three household staff and their rotas, and arranges private aviation and multi-country travel for a family of five. Reduced the principal's administrative load by taking full ownership of personal accounts, insurance renewals, property maintenance schedules and school liaison for two children. Trusted with medical, legal and financial correspondence under a standing confidentiality agreement. Fluent in French and conversational in Italian. Seeking a long-term private PA position with a principal who values continuity and absolute discretion.
Senior-level resume summary example
Senior personal assistant with twelve years supporting founders and chief executives, most recently as sole PA to the founder of a venture-backed technology company through two funding rounds and a move to a 300-person headcount. Manages an eighteen-hour operating window across US and European time zones, triages roughly 400 emails a day to a same-day zero inbox, and acts as the founder's authorised proxy with investors, the board and the leadership team. Ran board logistics for eleven meetings a year, including papers, minutes and the Diligent portal, with no paper issued late. Also coordinates the founder's private travel, personal finances and family calendar. Looking for a chief of staff track role alongside continued PA support to a founder.
Personal Assistant Work Experience Examples
Three PA contexts with the kind of bullets that survive a recruiter's skim. Each one carries scope, an action and a result:
PA to a chief executive or founder
- Owned the chief executive's diary across three time zones, triaging around 120 meeting requests a week against agreed criteria and protecting two hours of uninterrupted strategy time every working morning.
- Ran board logistics for nine meetings a year, assembling and issuing papers through the board portal five clear days ahead every time, with agendas, minutes and follow-up actions tracked to closure.
- Built multi-leg international itineraries covering an average of fourteen trips a year, handling visas, private charter legs and ground transport, and reissued a full day of meetings when flights were cancelled.
- Acted as authorised proxy with investors, non-executive directors and the leadership team, drafting correspondence issued under the chief executive's name and committing diary time up to board level unaided.
- Cut the chief executive's inbox from a standing backlog of 900 messages to same-day zero by taking over triage, drafting first replies and escalating only the items that genuinely needed a founder's answer.
Private PA or family office
- Supported one principal across business and private life, running a single combined calendar that held board commitments, charity trusteeships, family events and medical appointments without conflicts or overlap.
- Managed a household team of four including a driver, housekeeper and two part-time staff, building rotas, handling payroll submissions to the family office accountant and covering absences at short notice.
- Coordinated private travel for a family of five across school holidays and business trips, arranging charter flights, villa rentals, staff logistics and travel documentation for two children under sixteen.
- Took over personal administration including insurance renewals, utility contracts, property maintenance schedules and school liaison, removing an estimated six hours a week from the principal's own workload.
- Handled medical, legal and financial correspondence under a standing confidentiality agreement, maintaining a secure document system that the principal's lawyers and accountants could be given access to on request.
First PA role, stepping up from administration
- Moved from team administrator to sole PA for the managing partner, taking on the full diary, inbox and travel remit within a month and holding it through a period with no handover support available.
- Restructured a chronically overbooked calendar into themed days with protected client and design time, taking same-day meeting cancellations down from roughly six a month to one across the following quarter.
- Prepared client packs and agendas ahead of every project meeting, so the partner arrived briefed on the account history, the outstanding actions and the commercial position without asking for a verbal summary.
- Managed all UK and European travel and expenses through Xero, closing monthly expense claims within three working days of month end against a previous average of nearly three weeks.
- Handled the partner's personal appointments and family travel alongside the business diary, becoming the single point of contact that clients, staff and family all learned to route requests through.
Skills for a Personal Assistant Resume
Lead with the skills that only make sense when you support one person closely, and keep generic office software further down:
Hard skills
- Complex diary and calendar management
- Inbox triage and gatekeeping
- Multi-country travel and itinerary building
- Visa and travel documentation
- Private aviation and charter booking
- Board meeting preparation and papers
- Minute taking and action tracking
- Expense management and reconciliation
- Correspondence drafting on a principal's behalf
- Confidential document handling
- Household and family logistics
- Household staff scheduling
- Event and offsite coordination
- Contact and relationship database upkeep
- Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft 365 at power-user level
- Google Workspace administration
- Board portals such as Diligent
- Expense platforms such as Concur or Pleo
Soft skills:
- Absolute discretion
- Anticipating a principal's needs
- Composure when plans collapse
- Reading the room
- Saying no on someone else's behalf
- Continuity and reliability
Personal Assistant Certifications
No formal qualification is required to work as a PA, and most roles are won on track record, but these carry genuine recognition:
-
CAP
— IAAP Optional and the most widely recognised credential in the profession; accredited by the NCCA and often listed as desirable on corporate PA adverts.
-
Organizational Management specialty certificate
— IAAP Optional add-on to the CAP for assistants whose remit has grown into budgets, projects and supervising other support staff.
-
Certified World Class Assistant
— Office Dynamics International Optional. Aimed specifically at executive and personal assistants supporting senior principals rather than at general administration.
-
Microsoft Office Specialist
— Microsoft Optional. Worth listing at Expert level in Outlook or Excel, since power-user calendar and mailbox skills are genuinely assessed at interview.
Personal Assistant Salary Expectations
The closest published US federal wage line is executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants, which is where corporate PA roles are counted:
USD 50,560 – USD 50,560 · 10th percentile · US
Typical of a first PA role in a smaller organisation.
USD 76,590 – USD 76,590 · median · US
USD 109,850 – USD 109,850 · 90th percentile · US
Where PAs to chief executives, founders and private principals tend to sit. Private household and family office packages are negotiated individually and are not captured in this survey.
Personal Assistant Resume Mistakes to Avoid
These are the specific ways a strong PA undersells themselves on paper:
- Writing a duties list. Diary management, travel booking, expenses and correspondence describes every PA who has ever applied. The differentiator is whose diary, how complex, and what you protected.
- Claiming discretion without evidence. The word confidential on its own is worthless. Naming the categories of material you handled, and the obligations you worked under, is what a principal actually reads.
- Hiding the personal side. If you ran household staff, family travel or a principal's private accounts, that is skilled work and it is the clearest signal that you were genuinely trusted.
- Listing every executive you have ever supported. Depth with one principal beats breadth across many. Lead with the longest, most senior relationship and compress the rest.
- Breaching your principal's privacy. Naming a private individual, their family or their addresses on a document that circulates through agencies is the fastest way to fail a discretion test before interview.
- Reading like an office manager. Facilities, supplier contracts and office moves belong to a different role. If your remit was one person, keep the resume pointed at that person.
- Leaving out how you handled things going wrong. Recovering a collapsed itinerary or rebuilding a day around a crisis is the most persuasive PA evidence there is, and most resumes never mention it.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions candidates most commonly search before writing a PA resume:
A personal assistant supports one named principal closely and often across both business and private life; an executive assistant supports an executive or a leadership team within a business remit. So a PA resume is built around one relationship and may include household, family and personal financial work, while an EA resume is built around business support, meeting cadence and sometimes managing other administrative staff.
Prioritise complex diary management, inbox triage and gatekeeping, multi-country travel with visas and documentation, confidential document handling, and correspondence drafted on the principal's behalf. Add household and family logistics if your role covered them, and name the actual systems you used rather than writing computer literate.
Anchor it in the transferable proof you already have. Reception, team administration, hospitality and retail supervision all produce evidence of scheduling under pressure, handling sensitive information and managing demanding people. Lead with a summary that names the kind of principal you want to support, then show the closest equivalent responsibility you have held.
No, unless they are a public figure who has agreed to it. Describe the seat instead, such as PA to the chief executive of a mid-sized insurance broker or private PA to a family office principal. Naming a private individual on a document that circulates through recruitment agencies is treated as a discretion failure.
Two pages once you have supported a principal for several years, and one page for a first PA role. Give the most senior and longest relationship the most space, compress earlier administrative roles into short progression lines, and keep the systems list to the ones you genuinely use daily.
No, PA roles are almost always filled on track record and references rather than qualifications. A credential such as the IAAP Certified Administrative Professional can help in corporate hiring processes with formal screening, but in private and founder support the deciding factors are continuity, discretion and a recommendation from a previous principal.
Not in the US, UK, Canada or Australia, where photos on resumes are discouraged and can trigger anti-discrimination screening. In parts of continental Europe and the Middle East a photo is still conventional for PA roles, so match the norm in the country you are applying to.
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