How to Vet a Personal Assistant Before You Hire
Quick answer: To vet a personal assistant, get the handles they actually use and read a few weeks of their public posts - not the polished LinkedIn line, the ordinary scroll - across X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. What you are weighing is conduct and discretion: how they talk about past bosses and clients, whether they air people's private business, whether contempt for a whole group keeps surfacing. One clumsy post is a bad day; the same pattern week after week is a signal. This is personal due diligence on public posts - not a background check or consumer report, and no part in a regulated employment decision - and a clean result means nothing public stood out, not that the person is safe.
A personal assistant ends up with more of your life than almost anyone you pay. The calendar. The front-door code. The inbox you forget is unguarded. The school pickup when a meeting runs long. You are not really hiring a task-doer; you are handing a near-stranger a set of keys - to your home, your time, and often your family.
Which is why the interview only tells you so much. Anyone can be warm and organised for forty-five minutes. What you actually want to know is how this person behaves when they think the audience is friendly and no boss is watching - and for most people, that audience is their own timeline. Their public posts are the closest thing to a preview you get before the keys change hands.
What a personal assistant gets access to
Think about the reach of the role before you think about the resume. A good assistant touches your money, your movements, your correspondence, and the people you love, sometimes all in one afternoon. Discretion is not a nice-to-have; it is most of the job. Someone who cannot keep the last principal's business off their own feed will not keep yours off it either.
Checking a candidate's public footprint is not paranoid or unusual, either. About 70% of employers research job candidates on social media during hiring (CareerBuilder). For a role this close to your private life, reading what someone chooses to say in public is one of the more honest signals you will get.
How to vet a personal assistant from their public posts
Start with the handles they actually use, not just the tidy professional profile. Ask which accounts are theirs, confirm the name and face and work history line up, then read the way a future employer would - looking for character, not entertainment.
Two things matter most for this role. First, how they talk about the people they have worked for. An assistant who trashes every past boss, or who posts the private details of a household they served, is telling you exactly how your name will read on their feed in a year. Second, how they treat people in general. Repeated cruelty toward a whole group, extremist or conspiracy content, threats dressed up as jokes - that is not someone you want in your kitchen with a key and your kids' schedule.
Weight the pattern, not the outlier. Everyone has a post they would phrase differently now. What you care about is repetition and direction: the same targets, the same tone, the same worldview surfacing again and again. One bad line is a data point. A steady drumbeat over weeks is a decision.
Don't want to read a stranger's whole timeline yourself? ACCOUNTability! reads thousands of a candidate's public posts across X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and flags extremist, hateful and conspiracy content - each flag shows the actual post, so you judge it. It is a personal check of public posts, not a background check. €15.
Check their public postsA hiring-day checklist
- Get the real handles - ask for the profiles they actually use, and confirm the name, face and work history line up.
- Read a few weeks of public posts, not just the LinkedIn headline - conduct shows in the ordinary scroll.
- Look at how they talk about past bosses, clients and colleagues, because you are next in that list.
- Watch for contempt aimed at a whole group - this is someone who will be close to your home and family.
- Weigh the pattern over any single post, and note what you would ask them about in the interview.
- Keep it to public posts and to what the role needs, and let a licensed provider handle any formal background check.
Where the line is
Be clear with yourself about what this is. Reading someone's public posts is personal due diligence - the same instinct as calling a reference. It is not a background check or a consumer report, and it plays no part in a regulated employment decision. If you are formally screening a hire - criminal records, credit, verified employment history - that is a separate process with legal rules, and you should use a licensed provider that follows them. Keep your own reading to adults, to what is already public, and to what the job actually requires. Do not turn a look at someone's posts into a dossier, and never lean on a scan to justify a decision the law reserves for a proper background check.
The honest limits
A read of public posts only sees what is public. A locked-down account, or a candidate who barely posts, leaves you very little - and quiet is not the same as clean. It leans on volume, too: an active poster leaves a real trail, a lurker almost none. And when the reading is done by AI flagging content for you, context can trip it - reclaimed language, dry sarcasm, or a quoted line someone was arguing against can get marked, which is exactly why you want the actual post in front of you rather than a verdict.
The limit that matters most: a clean scan means nothing public stood out, not that the person is trustworthy. It is one input among several. Pair it with real references, a proper interview, a paid trial period, and, where the role calls for it, a licensed background check. Read first, ask better questions because of what you read, and hand over the keys to someone whose public self you would be comfortable explaining to your family.
Key takeaways
- A personal assistant gets deep access to your home, calendar and family, so vet for discretion and character, not just skills.
- Read a few weeks of ordinary public posts, especially how they talk about past bosses and clients - you are next on that list.
- Weigh repetition and direction: one clumsy post is a bad day, the same pattern week after week is a signal.
- This is personal due diligence on public posts, not a background check or consumer report, and no part in a regulated employment decision; use a licensed provider for that.
- A clean result means nothing public stood out, not that the person is safe - treat it as one input among references, interviews and a trial.
Common questions
How do you vet a personal assistant before hiring?
Start with what is already public. Get the handles they use, then read a few weeks of their public posts across X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn - enough to see a pattern, not a single good or bad day. Pay attention to how they talk about former bosses and clients, and whether contempt for a whole group keeps surfacing, since a personal assistant sits close to your home, your calendar and your family. It is a read of what they already made public, not a background check, and the hiring call stays yours.
What are the red flags in a personal assistant's public posts?
The ones that matter are about conduct and discretion, not taste. Trashing every past employer, airing private details of the people they worked for, extremist or conspiracy content, or cruelty aimed at a group - those tell you how they will treat you and your family once they have access. A single clumsy post is a bad day; the same pattern week after week is a signal. Read the timeline, weigh the volume, and keep context in mind before you decide.
Is checking a candidate's posts a background check?
No. Reading someone's public posts is personal due diligence, not a background check or consumer report, and it plays no part in a regulated employment decision - for that, use a licensed provider that follows the rules. ACCOUNTability! reads thousands of a person's public posts across X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and flags extremist, hateful and conspiracy content, showing you the actual post so you judge it. Keep it to adults and to public posts, and treat a clean result as nothing public stood out, not proof the person is safe.
Hand over the keys with your eyes open
Before you give a personal assistant your door code and your calendar, ACCOUNTability! reads thousands of their public posts across X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and flags extremist content, hate speech, transphobia and conspiracy stuff - each flag shows the actual post so you can judge it yourself. There are tools that do this for big companies; as far as we know, nothing built for a regular person making a personal hire. €15 a scan, no sales call.
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