Recruiting your replacement and saying goodbye graciously

So you’ve landed the perfect role and are ready to move on to your next adventure. Congratulations!

Assistants must take the steps when saying goodbye to their Executive and leaving graciously. We will cover the following:

5 things Assistants should consider before accepting a new role

So you’ve aced your interview and been offered the job. How exciting! However, it would be best if you considered a few things before accepting a new role. Here are my top 5 considerations…

1. On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you?

I asked this question because you can get easily overwhelmed by the excitement of a new role. Your new employer may have done a fantastic job selling the position and the organisation to you. The new job may have come with a huge pay increase, and you’ve started spending the money in your head already, or you may hate your current role so much that anything to get out of there is worth taking.

But wait. Stop. Take a moment to reflect on your true feelings. Is the role perfect? If not, weigh the pros and cons and ensure you make the right choice. The excitement only lasts so long!

2. The culture

This is important. It would be best if you considered the culture of the organisation. If you didn’t ask this question during the interview, you could always ask to speak to your potential employer again to get a view of the culture. Once you get some details, do take the time to think about how this reflects your personality.

Is the office a crazy mad startup with many Millenials running around making snap decisions – is that your work style? Is it a quiet law firm with strict regulations and procedures that must be followed – would that stifle your creativity? Whatever the culture is, make sure you are happy to work within it.

3. The future of your role and the company

Again, this is a subject that you should raise during the interview process. What is the future of your role within the organisation, and what are the organisation’s overall objectives? Your potential employer should happily give you an overview of where they see your part going and hopefully suggest lots of room for you to grow.

Firstly, the organisation should have objectives and, secondly, give you confidence in the security of your job. If your employer doesn’t answer these questions, it should give you pause for thought before accepting the role.

4. The relationship between you and your Executive

As an Assistant, you must work closely with your Executive(s). It is essential that you get on and can work well together. This is a little difficult to tell during the interview, but you should get an insight into their personality if you ask the right questions.

Before accepting the job, consider whether you can work closely with this person. If you are unsure, it might not be your best role.

5. Salary and reward

I put pay and reward last because although it is crucial (it made my top 5 after all!), it is not as important as some other considerations. We all work to pay our bills. This goes without saying.

But, once you get past the salary you need to live comfortably, there are other considerations because it can be hard to stay in a role you hate despite the pay being good. Reward packages are slightly different. I think it is essential to consider the benefits offered by the employer because that reflects how they treat their staff.

Please make sure you look through your benefits package and consider its impact on your life. If the rewards and salary make a big difference, but the role isn’t significant, make sure you can cope with the pressure of not particularly enjoying your job.

Actions to take when you resign from your Assistant role

The first thing to remember is that this happens all the time. Leaving an organisation for a new role is common, and most people change positions a few times. It is challenging for Assistants to resign because we work closely with our executives and form a solid team. But, when you are ready to move on, you must have that awkward conversation. Here are a few things to consider when you resign.

Say thank you

Even when you hated the job, there wasn’t any point in burning bridges. Be gracious, and say thanks for the opportunity and the new skills you learned while working there.

Think about the explanation you are going to give

Why are you leaving? You will get asked this question, so prepare an answer that will come some way to explain your reasons. Be honest but don’t go into too much detail.

Offer to help with the transition and recruiting your replacement

We will cover this in greater detail later in the chapter. But make an offer to assist with the change and ensure everything is organised when you leave.

Work your notice

Before you hand in your resignation, if you don’t know, check the length of your notice period. If it is a minimum of two weeks, great, but it might be three months, and you must plan accordingly. If you would like your notice period to be shorter than the time stated in your contract, you can negotiate this. Speak to your Executive and your HR department.

Prepare a resignation letter

Stating your intentions to leave, a brief explanation of why you are moving, a note of thanks for the opportunities and a date that you would like to leave the organisation.

Recruiting your replacement – where do you start?

When I started researching this topic, I found a lot of articles on why businesses should never, and I mean NEVER, let the incumbent staff member recruit their replacement. There were many reasons that I agree with, but from experience, this is something that many assistants have done in their careers and will do in the future. I’ve had to recruit my replacement twice.

Once when I was promoted and hired a replacement Administrator who I line managed, and secondly, when I left the role to move to a different business. I have also been interviewed a handful of times by an EA who was leaving the position.

To give you an example of why you shouldn’t probably recruit your replacement, I was once told by an EA interviewing me, ‘you seem nice. Please don’t take this role. It is awful!’ I left the interview pretty quickly!

So while it might not be the best idea for your organisation to ask you to recruit your replacement, it is something that you might get asked to do before you leave for pastures new.

There are some benefits to the process for you. Here are a few:

• You get to leave your old position knowing that you have handed the role over to someone capable
• You know that you’ve left your Executive in good hands, which means you can ask for that fantastic reference in the future.
• You haven’t burnt any bridges. You’ve moved positively, which is always an excellent way to leave your old employer.
• You are part of the recruitment process, a great skill to add to your toolkit.

So, if you have been asked to recruit your replacement and haven’t hired a new staff member before. Where do you start? Here are a few tips.

• Meet with HR straight away so that they are part of the process. It would be best if you worked with them on the recruitment, interview and offer stages.
• Arrange a meeting with your Executive about the replacement and ask the following questions:
  • What are the objectives of this new recruitment?
  • Is it a like-for-like replacement, or do you want to recruit a new assistant with different skills?
• Is the job description still relevant for this new role? Can you update it, so the new Assistant has more clarity around the tasks and responsibilities?
• Can you recommend any recruitment agencies that you have worked with in the past that understand the Assistant role? You can put these forward to your HR team to not rely on their standard recruitment practices.
• Are you going to promote the role on LinkedIn or other social media? What can you say on your profile that will help promote the job?
• Can you recruit internally? Is there anyone you know who would be perfect for replacing you or has the potential to grow into the role?
• Once you start receiving applications, make sure you take the time to review each one thoroughly, these are people looking for a new role that could be life-changing, so do give them your time and attention. Look for the evident skills and requirements but try to understand their personality will fit well with your Executive. It might be easier to gain this level of detail by looking at their LinkedIn profile.

The Interview Process

Once you have selected your candidates, you will need to interview them. Depending on the level of the role, the candidates might have to go through a series of interviews. Still, you should interview the candidate with your HR colleague (this is important if you haven’t conducted an interview before) and then do a second round of interviews with your Executive. There are loads of great resources out there to help you prepare for the interview, but here are a few tips that I found helpful:

• Be prepared. It is your role to know everything there is to know about the position but plan out how you want to portray it to someone coming into the organisation for the first time.
• Everyone will be nervous; you will be if it is your first time conducting an interview, and of course, the candidate will be too, so make sure you put the candidate at ease as soon as you can so that you can start to relax. Although you are there to interview the person, they are fellow assistants, so you should have their back and make them feel comfortable.
• Make sure you listen more than you speak. You might love the role and want them to know everything about the office, the culture, and your boss, but it is their interview, so make sure you let them do most of the talking!
• The ideal candidate might not be who you expect from the applications you receive, so try to remain flexible and allow everyone to shine. You might end up selecting the candidate with the potential over someone with all the skills upfront.

Onboarding your replacement

Once you have hired your replacement, you will likely have to onboard them, so do make sure you review the onboarding process and add any additional details that you think will set the new Assistant off on the right foot. Think back to your onboarding experience and write down all the answers to your questions when you started. This will mean that the new Assistant will hit the ground running, and you can leave knowing that you have done an excellent job recruiting your replacement.

Now that you’ve mastered the art of leaving gracefully, it’s time to focus on preparing for your next role. It can be daunting, but with an extra helping hand, such as the Accelerate Your Assistant Job Search Online Course, you can equip yourself with the right information and resources to make sure you stand out from other applicants and shine. This program will help make searching for a job easier and give you the confidence that you have the skills and experience needed to succeed in any new role. So why wait? Make sure you enrol now and secure your place in this invaluable job search course!

Thank you for reading our guide!

We hope you find the guide useful and that it helps you on your journey to finding a new Assistant role. The sky is the limit!

This guide will always be free for Assistants.