In short: a personal assistant assessment should test judgement, discretion and prioritisation under pressure, not typing or software knowledge. “Personal assistant” covers two quite different jobs, an office PA (in practice, an executive assistant) and a private, household PA. The way you test them differs, but the principle is the same: put the candidate inside a realistic day and score how they think.
“Personal assistant” is one of the most stretched job titles there is. When someone searches for a personal assistant test, they usually mean one of two roles, and testing them well starts with knowing which one you are hiring.
A personal assistant is really two different jobs
An office or business PA supports a leader inside an organisation: inbox, diary, travel, stakeholders, projects. In practice this is the same role most people now call an Executive Assistant, and it should be tested the same way. A private or household PA supports an individual or family across their personal life: household logistics, staff, property, travel, and a great deal of discretion. The skills overlap, but the stakes and the sensitivities are different.
Whichever you are hiring, the mistake is the same: reaching for a typing test or a multiple-choice quiz. Those measure the parts of the job least likely to go wrong. Nobody loses a good PA because they were slow at a spreadsheet. They lose them because the person could not read a situation, could not prioritise by what mattered, or handled something sensitive without the judgement it needed.
What a personal assistant test should measure
The things that actually predict a strong PA are dispositions, not keystrokes: how they read what is really going on, how they prioritise competing demands under pressure, how they communicate across audiences, whether they follow through with concrete action, and whether they can be trusted with sensitive information. A good assessment puts those on display. A skills test does not.
How to test an office PA
Give the candidate a realistic working day and watch how they think: a full inbox before nine, three priorities landing at once, a sensitive message that has to go out in the principal’s name. Ask for the reasoning, not just the answer. This is exactly what our Executive Assistant assessment does, and the approach is covered in more depth in how to test an Executive Assistant before you hire. For the wider process, start with how to hire an Executive Assistant in 2026.
How to test a private or household PA
For a private PA, discretion and trust move to the centre. Alongside prioritisation and communication, you are testing how someone handles confidential information, competing demands from a family, and the judgement to act on their own initiative in a home rather than an office. Our Private PA assessment is built for exactly these high-trust, household and family-office roles.
Test a PA the way the role actually works
Whether you are hiring an office PA or a private one, every candidate sits the same scenario-based day, scored against the same benchmark and reviewed by a specialist. You get evidence you can defend, not a gut call.
See how the assessment works →Common questions
What is a personal assistant test?
A personal assistant test is an assessment used to check how a PA candidate performs before you hire. The most reliable kind is scenario-based: it puts the candidate inside a realistic working day and scores their judgement, prioritisation, communication and discretion, rather than testing typing or software skills.
How do you assess a personal assistant before hiring?
Give them a realistic scenario from the role, with competing priorities and a sensitive situation to handle, and ask them to talk you through what they would do and why. Score every candidate against the same benchmark so you can compare like with like.
Is a personal assistant the same as an executive assistant?
In an office setting they are usually the same role, and should be tested the same way. A private or household PA is a different job, supporting an individual or family across their personal life, where discretion and trust matter even more.
What should a PA assessment include?
Prioritisation under pressure, situational judgement, communication across audiences, follow-through, and discretion with sensitive information. Typing speed and software knowledge tell you little about whether someone will be a strong PA.
Lily Shippen
Founder, The Core Standard
Lily spent over a decade recruiting Executive Assistants and PAs at the highest level, founding Lily Shippen Recruitment at 22, before building The Core Standard. She has worked with hundreds of EAs, PAs and leaders across the UK, and now scores candidates through the assessment herself. Connect on LinkedIn.