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?”
Prioritisation

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