Interviewing for an Office Assistant

Why use us?

Office assistants manage business support tasks. This might include anything from organising the office, writing copy, proofreading, scheduling appointments and meetings and much more, it really depends on your company and its needs.

Regardless, if you think you are going to find it difficult to pick an applicant out of those applying for your job, Interview Quizzes will make the entire process a whole lot easier for you. Through our simple quiz playing system, you can see which of the candidates that have applied really know what they are talking about.

Skills to look for when employing Office Assistants

• Customer service and communication skills - These are incredibly important. Being polite, professional and helpful is a must when dealing with your customers and your staff members. Office assistants often work in a team and effective communication skills help make customers and employees feel comfortable.
• Time-Management skills – Office assistants often need to juggle multiple tasks each day. The most successful assistants will be those who can prioritise tasks, multitask and manage time well.
• Office Administration/Organisational skills - Office assistants are responsible for many different tasks during a typical working day, so organisation and keeping the workplace looking professional is important. A good candidate will not only know how to keep their desk clean, but also their computer files organised neatly and labelled correctly.
• Problem solving skills - As an employer, you will want an employee that you can easily present problems to and see results from. A good office assistant will be able to take any task you give them and do their best to make the task easier on you and the team.
• Teamwork - No matter how small your team is, office assistants will undoubtedly be sharing their workspace with other people with a role in the job. It’s important that they are able to work well in team and communicate clearly so they can solve problems as a group.
• Technical skills - Many office assistants will spend the majority of their time working on computers, therefore strong technical skills are important as they will be working in excel spreadsheets and word documents. Finding someone with previous knowledge of these programs will save you a lot of time on training.
• Multitasking - Office assistants are often placed in a fast-paced work environment where they are given many jobs to complete in a day. Skilled assistants need to remain calm under pressure while getting the job done efficiently. It’s their job to prioritise the most important tasks and get them done first.

How can you find these qualities in your employees?

So, you have advertised your job online or in the paper and people seem interested… Instead of arduously sifting through all of their CVs, make use of our quizzes and get them to prove their knowledge and skill, instead of taking their word for it!

Construct your unique interview quiz

You are free to choose whichever 4 categories you want but here are our 4 suggested quizzes for the job of a office assistant:

1. English Basic – This tests your applicant’s ability to communicate by finding out how well they can understand simple, everyday language. This is crucial in the role of a office assistant as they need to be able to communicate and follow instructions successfully.
2. MS Excel Basic - Spreadsheets are an incredible way of storing and organising data as well as giving users the ability to run powerful calculations, make graphs and charts and analyse patterns. If you use MS Excel in your business, you will want an employee who can get a good score on this test.
3. MS Word – Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software available that allows your employees to type documents up digitally. If you are going to want your office assistant to type anything up on a PC, be it for reports or notes, then you’ll want them to get a good score in these quizzes.
4. IT Basic – Test their knowledge of computing with some IT quizzes. If they are going to be working alongside a computer and technical systems, it might be a good idea to see which of your candidates knows the most about technology.

At the Interview

When it comes to the job interviews, you will be armed with a page showing the results of the candidate’s online tests. This will highlight who is good at what and it will be the ideal tool to help you formulate the best interview questions to ask.

Conclusion

We can't decide who is best for you but we can provide the tools to help you MAKE BETTER DECISIONS, FASTER.