It is important for every organization to ensure that it operates an effective and efficient human resource functions such as personnel selection. This is aimed at ensuring that the organization sources for the best working staff that would perform in accordance with the it’s policies, mission and vision. Thus performance of the organization in relation to the staff output will be assessed on the basis of the ability of its human resource department to recruit, select and employ the best job applicants who meets the organization’s job specification and requirement (Dessler, 2000). Though organizations do not apply the same personnel recruitment and selection techniques, it is essential that every firm applies the best technique when filling vacant staff positions. When seeking to recruit an administrative assistant who is capable of playing an influential role in driving the company into realizing its goals, a firm should always consider the importance of that post in the organization. When designing the job description and functions of an executive assistant, a lot of emphasis should be laid on the mission and vision of the firm. That is, the job description should be congruent with the goals of the organization.
Administrative assistant should possess certain academic qualifications, skill, and experience and should be ready and willing to perform the following functions: He/she must be a holder of bachelor of business Administration from a reputable university. He/she must be computer literate especially in Microsoft office tools. Masters in business administration will be an added advantage.The eligible candidate must have at least seven years working experience in the related field.The candidate should demonstrate a high level of interpersonal, communication, active listening and critical thinking skills. The following represents the functions and responsibilities of the prospective administrative assistant: First he/she will be subordinate to the executive president. Thus he/she will be answerable to the executive president through monitoring activities and later reporting the findings.Designing and applying administrative policies that are in line with the organization’s goals will be key obligation.The person seeking the position should be able to coordinate activities between different departments within the organization. He/she will run external organization’s errands on behalf of the president. He/she will also be responsible for negotiating contracts on behalf of the president. The administrative assistant should be able to execute his/her responsibilities in accordance with the legal and ethical standards.
Personnel selection process is one of the most important function of the human resource department. The personnel managers should come up with a concrete and effective personnel selection process since it plays a very important role when seeking to fill vacant positions. Personnel selection is a process by which an organization seeks to find the best employee for a certain vacant position in the organization (Andrews, 1997). The prospective candidate’s credentials and personal attributes should meet the job requirements. In order for an organization to conduct favorable personnel selection process; they need to adopt the best techniques. Use of interviews is the best personnel selection technique to employ when filling vacant positions in an organization. Before conducting interviews recruitment process must take place which is meant to provide a large pool of applicants for the vacant position to be filled.
To come up with qualified candidates for interviewing , screening process for applicants must be conducted to ensure that those candidates who’s qualifications does not meet the job description are eliminated from this stage. Favorable applicants who have passed this stage are shortlisted and invited for interview. Andrews (1997) has observed that interview process forms the crucial part of the personnel selection process, because it is only at this stage that facts and attributes of different applicants will be assessed and established. The organization will plan and conduct its interviews depending on a few factors such as, the level of the vacant position in the organization structure, the amount of qualification needed or the type of job in question, which is whether it is technical in nature that requires practical demonstration. This will determine if the organization will adopt oral, written or both techniques when trying to identify the most desirable qualities for the position.
For Administrative assistant position which is one of the highest positions in the organization, interviewers need to be so cautious with the type of techniques they will apply to ensure that they get an individual with the following attributes: ability to drive the organization towards its goals, one who is enthusiastic and comfortable with the organization policies, culture and is also success oriented. For that reason applicants will be expected to present original copies of their academic certificates to authenticate what is indicated in the curriculum vitae. The best applicant will chosen depending on that candidate who will present the most excellent personal, academic and working experience background that is reflective of the job description.
Performance evaluation is the term used to refer to the process by which an individual is examined whether he/she has delivered on the assigned duties (Dessler, 2000). If it is established that he/she is cable of executing his/her duties effectively then one is rewarded for the hard work. Administrative assistants are always expected to fulfill his/her objectives as far as the job description is concerned. They performance will be evaluated on whether they are capable of performing the following: Ability to work within the company policies and plans, punctuality on submission of reports, the extent to which he/she can exercise critical thinking skills when faced with challenging problems, ability of the administrator to demonstrate team work spirit within the organization and ability to deliver on unspecified duties.
In most cases the administrator’s performance will be evaluated with respect to their responsibilities, duties, and professionalism when discharging what is in the job description. After a thorough assessment of all these functions, a report will be prepared, to demonstrate whether the administrative assistant performance and results are above par, within the expected standard or below the expectation. Those administrators whose results exceeds the standards should be rewarded accordingly while those who‘s performance and results did not meet the expected standards should be subjected to training or the organization should consider reviewing the job description.This ensures that the pace at which organizations goals are to be met are not derailed by certain functions.
References
Andrews, Y. (1997).The Personnel Function. Pretoria: Kagiso Tertiary.
Dessler, G. (2000). Human resource management. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.