You don’t need to be a celebrity to have your very own PA

It would appear that many of our fellow PAs across the pond have an incredibly heavy workload, as some of them have resorted to hiring assistants to run their personal errands. This just proves that you don’t have to be a celebrity or a high-level executive to afford such a luxury.

Run Around Betties, a Southern California-based company, makes it easy and inexpensive for office professionals to hire an assistant to take care of personal or office errands. A “Betty” can be booked with a phone call or online for as little as $25 – about £16 – an hour. The company chooses who to send based on the client’s specific requirements, such as knowledge of certain software, a love of dogs, or the ability to fold linen perfectly.

An affordable way to have your own PA

We’re usually a bit slow on the uptake here in the UK, but there is a now a similar service available right here at home. London-based Errands Plus provides task runners to take care of personal business in any part of the UK, Western Europe, or the US. You can hire somebody to get a spare key cut or get your favourite shoes re-heeled.

“PAs are invaluable assets to an organisation and they are constantly juggling work and personal commitments not just for themselves but for their bosses, too,” says the MD of Errands Plus, Oga St John. “They see us as their own PAs, who they rely on to fulfill those tasks that distract from their core responsibilities.”

It sounds like hiring somebody else to do those mundane errands may just be the way to achieve a better work-life balance.

We asked the UK’s only specialist Assistant and Admin support recruitment site SecsintheCity for their top advice on how to succeed in a PA job interview.

PA Life now hosts a SecsintheCity jobs board – check out the latest Assistant jobs here.