How to hire an administrative/design assistant

How to hire an administrative/design assistant, step by step

Here's a step-by-step administrative/design assistant hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write an administrative/design assistant job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new administrative/design assistant
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the administrative/design assistant you need to hire. Certain administrative/design assistant roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them an administrative/design assistant to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire an administrative/design assistant that fits the bill.

   This list shows salaries for various types of administrative/design assistants.

   Type of Administrative/Design Assistant	Description	Hourly rate
   Administrative/Design Assistant	Secretaries and administrative assistants perform clerical and administrative duties. They organize files, prepare documents, schedule appointments, and support other staff.	$16-31
   Administrative Support	Administrative support specialists provide different types of governmental assistance. They carry out varied clerical duties in almost all industries... Show more	$12-25
   Administrative Staff	As the administrative staff, they primarily provide administrative and secretarial support for the department. Typically, they do report-writing, filing and scheduling, and payroll... Show more	$27-48

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Graphic Design
   • CAD
   • Purchase Orders
   • Design Software
   • Database Management
   • Travel Arrangements
   • Adobe Photoshop
   • Expense Reports
   • Scheduling Appointments
   • Payroll
   • HTML
   • Design Projects
   • Space Planning
   • PowerPoint

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Work with SEO tools and platforms to achieve most user optimization for company websites.
   • Support medical doctors, manage sensitive and confidential records pertaining to high risk patients with emphasis on accuracy.
   • Used HTML, CSS3, WordPress, JavaScript, and communication skills as part of the project.
   • Complete labor allocations for Facebook.
   • Create PowerPoint presentations for company promotions.
   • Introduce software to auto-generate HTML tables using data reverse-engineer from games.

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your administrative/design assistant job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. An administrative/design assistant can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, administrative/design assistants' average salary in montana is 31% less than in hawaii.
   • Seniority. Entry-level administrative/design assistants 47% less than senior-level administrative/design assistants.
   • Certifications. An administrative/design assistant with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in an administrative/design assistant's salary.

   Average administrative/design assistant salary

   $48,434yearly

   $23.29 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level administrative/design assistant salary

   $35,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 17, 2025

4. Writing an administrative/design assistant job description

   A job description for an administrative/design assistant role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's an administrative/design assistant job description:

   Administrative/design assistant job description example

   Minimum qualifications:
   
   + Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
   
   + 4 years of experience in product design or UX.
   
   + Experience designing voice user interfaces and/or multi-modal interfaces for a range of user contexts and device types.
   
   Preferred qualifications:
   
   + Master's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
   
   + 2 years of experience working in a complex, cross-functional organization.
   
   + 1 year of experience leading design projects.
   
   + Experience as a systems thinker and designing for scalable conversation.
   
   + Experience balancing user needs with technical constraints and business considerations.
   
   + Technical knowledge of the fundamentals of conversation (e.g., Cooperative Principle, turn-taking, cognitive load, pragmatics, prosody) and speech and language technologies (e.g., ASR, NLU, TTS).
   
   At Google, we follow a simple but vital premise: "Focus on the user and all else will follow." Google's Conversation Designers leverage their knowledge of human language and communication to create seamless and natural interactions for digital systems across surfaces.
   
   Google User Experience (UX) is made up of multi-disciplinary teams of UX Designers, Researchers, Writers, Content Strategists, Program Managers, and Engineers: we care deeply about the people who use our products. The UX team plays an integral part in gathering insights about the attitudes, emotions, and behaviors of people who use our products to inspire and inform design. We collaborate closely with each other and with engineering and product management to create industry-leading products that deliver value for the people who use them, and for Google's businesses.
   
   As a Conversation Designer, you'll create conversational, voice-forward experiences across multiple surfaces, such as smart speakers, smart displays, auto, and more. You'll work on multiple projects simultaneously, deal with cross-functional stakeholders, and provide feedback and direction to design work. Design work will include understanding product requirements and user context, and you'll create flows, prompts, and multi-modal interaction patterns.
   
   User experience is at the forefront of how we create intuitive, innovative, and beautiful products that people love. We strive to learn and understand our users' needs, behaviors, and emotions to gather insights that inform product strategy and design. Our UX teams include designers, researchers, content strategists, and engineers who are passionate about quality, usability, and simplicity. We work on collaborative teams to solve complex challenges and craft experiences that highlight our products' unique capabilities and personalities. Our work touches billions while exemplifying a key principle that is core to Google's philosophy: "Focus on the user and all else will follow."
   
   Additional Information:
   
   (Colorado only*) Minimum full-time salary range between $130,000 - $139,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. *Note: Disclosure as required by sb19-085 (8-5-20) of the minimum salary compensation for this role when being hired into our offices in Colorado.
   
   + Develop sample dialogs, flow diagrams, and prototypes to effectively communicate voice interactions and design ideas.
   
   + Create detailed, comprehensive voice user interface (VUI) design specifications in collaboration with Engineering and others in User Experience.
   
   + Evaluate usability and audio consistency of existing dialog flows and recommend design changes.
   
   + Create guidelines, reference artifacts, and resources for third-party developers to assist in VUI design and prompt writing.
   
   + Develop and advocate voice user interface design best practices and guidelines to ensure a consistent brand experience for users across Google.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find administrative/design assistants for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your administrative/design assistant job on Zippia to find and recruit administrative/design assistant candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   During your first interview to recruit administrative/design assistants, engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. During the following interview, you'll be able to go into more detail about the company, the position, and the responsibilities.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new administrative/design assistant

   Once you've decided on a perfect administrative/design assistant candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new administrative/design assistant. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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