- Executive maturity Comfortable interacting with senior people; composed, not intimidated Put them in a simulated MD interaction with an impatient senior stakeholder
- Judgment & discretion Knows what is confidential, what can be shared, and what needs escalation Give 5 situations and ask: “What would you tell the MD? What would you handle yourself?”

3.

Prioritisation

Can distinguish urgent vs important; doesn't simply pass everything to MD Give 8 competing requests arriving simultaneously and ask them to sequence them

4.

Ownership

Takes a task from instruction → follow-up → closure without repeated prompting Ask for an example where they had to chase multiple people to get something completed

- Follow-through Excellent at reminders, tracking, pending lists and closing loops Give a mock project with 6 pending actions and see how they create a tracker

6.

Communication

Crisp emails, WhatsApp messages, calls and verbal updates Give a messy situation and ask them to communicate it to the MD in 3 lines

- Attention to detail Dates, names, numbers, commitments, meeting details, documents Give a deliberately error-filled calendar/email/document and ask them to identify issues




- Calendar management Understands that the MD's time is a scarce resource Give a day's calendar with conflicting meetings and ask them to redesign it

9.

Proactivity

Anticipates what the MD will need rather than waiting for instructions Ask: “Your MD is travelling tomorrow. What would you proactively check today?”

- Business understanding Interest in understanding real estate, projects, sales, finance and people—not just administration Ask them to explain how they would learn the business in their first 30 days
- Stakeholder management Can deal with employees, customers, vendors, senior management and external people diplomatically Role-play someone demanding immediate access to the MD
- Technology & organisation Robust Excel, PowerPoint, email, calendar, Teams/Zoom/WhatsApp, document management; ideally AI tools Give a practical 30-minute task rather than relying on self-rating
- Energy & resilience EA role can be unpredictable; needs flexibility without becoming flustered Ask about a situation where priorities changed suddenly
- Personality fit Pleasant but assertive; neither overly submissive nor over-familiar Observe how they disagree or push back during the interview
- Learning agility At 2 years, this is particularly important Ask: “Tell me something you learnt in the last 6 months without anyone asking you to.”

📌 Executive Assistant to Managing Director (Chennai)
🏢 Rams Real estates
📍 Chennai