Executive Assistant

Hop is growing! We’re looking to hire an Executive Assistant to play a key role in keeping our CEO and team on track to success.

There’s a lot of information below (we’ve done our best to be both thorough and succinct), but we’re guessing the person who’d be a good fit for this role will want to know all of these details. So, read on, and if you find yourself nodding along as you go, let’s connect!

 

Quick Facts

Before we get into what the role looks like, here are some quick facts about Hop Labs: 

  • 100% remote, primarily based in the U.S. 

  • 10-15 team members, depending on our project mix at any given time 

  • Exclusively focused on technical consulting around production-scale machine learning

  • Results-oriented work environment with a lot of flexibility 

  • Full slate of benefits (medical, dental, vision, paid holidays, etc.) 

  • Learn about our values and how we practice them here

Responsibilities

We’ve thought quite a bit about how to structure this role to align with our culture and business goals. We expect this team member to be responsible for:

  • Executive Support: calendar and time management, meeting coordination, email correspondence, documentation, travel arrangements, some personal tasks

  • Administrative Duties: organization of internal documents and resources, routine admin tasks, optimization of workflows and tools

  • Team Support: organization of team-building activities, support of occasional day-to-day needs

Day-to-Day

Here’s what we expect the general day-to-day to look like for this role: 

  • Daily

    • Management of the CEO’s calendar and staying in sync on priorities

    • Support for the CEO in keeping on top of urgent tasks and long-term goals

    • Organization of internal documents and resources

  • Regularly

    • Documentation of notes and next steps from executive meetings

    • Support for the team (coordinating meetings, assisting with other individual needs)

    • Optimization of job-related processes, workflows, and tools

    • Routine administrative tasks

  • Periodic

    • Administrative facilitation of the hiring process

    • Team onboarding/offboarding (administrative matters)

    • Travel arrangements for the CEO and team

    • Organization of team-building activities

    • Quarterly goal-setting and task-planning with the management team

    • Project management of internal initiatives

    • Personal tasks for the CEO

We’d like to see this person grow into taking ownership of:

  • Coordination with HR to maintain compliance  

  • Coordination of insurance coverage for client projects

  • Coordination with legal services

Positive Signs

While it’s challenging to enumerate all of the indicators that things are going well with the person in this role, here are some key successful outcomes: 

  • Our CEO has quick visibility into urgent tasks and priorities.

  • Meetings are scheduled promptly in alignment with priorities.

  • Requests from the CEO and team are acknowledged in a timely manner, and resulting tasks are tracked and completed in alignment with current priorities.

  • Notes and other historical data can be easily found when needed.

  • Processes and tools related to the role are regularly evaluated and incrementally improved.

  • Communication with our CEO, and the team overall, is efficient, with good rapport.

  • This person (maybe you?) enjoys being part of our team! :)


Signs of Concern

If any of the following were to occur, it might indicate to us that we'd need to reevaluate this role and our working relationship to make sure there's a successful path forward:

  • Our CEO is missing meetings, deadlines, or other important priorities due to a lack of organization and/or responsiveness to prior requests. While there are varied aspects of this role, supporting our CEO in staying on top of ever-shifting priorities and demands of his time is the most crucial. 

  • Requests from the CEO and team, or other tasks, are dropped. Tracking tasks to ensure they’re addressed in a timely manner is essential to smooth operations for the company and trust between management and team. You may not always be the one to complete the tasks, but ensuring that anything brought to your attention makes its way to completion is a primary responsibility of this role.

  • High-priority routine tasks are missed. As a small business with a lot going on, there are always important matters popping up and demanding attention. Part of succeeding in this role is balancing the momentary urgent needs with the ongoing necessary tasks to keep essential things running in the background.

  • Our processes are not improving. The expectation is that this role will be keeping an eye out for opportunities to optimize workflows and develop new procedures and practices with regard to support for our CEO. 

  • This person (again, perhaps you) is not engaged in / not enjoying the role. We’d definitely want to understand why, and if there’s some way we can better support you.

Our Preferences

We’re open to candidates of all backgrounds, but in prioritized order, these are qualities that we feel are particularly important for this role: 

  • Excellent organizational and time-management skills, with the ability to handle multiple tasks and adapt to changing timelines – you’re the one who always knows the most urgent tasks to be done on any given day and can find the email from “that guy I met with about x 2 or 3 months ago”.

  • Meticulous attention to detail to ensure accuracy and quality in all tasks – you can spot an extra space in a document from a mile away, and you instinctively double-check any communication before sending.

  • Critical and thorough thinking paired with efficiency, to anticipate needs, collaborate effectively, and keep moving – you take the time to think through risks and plan carefully but don’t get lost in the weeds and let perfection be the enemy of done.

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a friendly and approachable tone – you’ve learned the nuanced mix of friendliness, professionalism, and “reading the room”.

  • Resourcefulness, problem-solving abilities, and the capacity to work independently in a remote work setting – taking initiative to figure things out is natural for you, and you’re productive in both solo and team environments.

  • A collaborative mindset with strong interpersonal skills to build positive relationships in a remote team setting – you reach out for and offer help when needed, and others trust you with sensitive topics.

  • Proficiency in remote collaboration tools and productivity software (e.g., task management software, video conferencing tools) to facilitate seamless communication and collaboration – you may not have used them all, but you’re well versed in the current common remote tools and can learn others easily.

  • Previous experience in executive support roles or administrative positions, preferably in a startup or fast-paced environment – you can roll with ever-shifting priorities while crossing all of your t’s and dotting your i’s.

  • Familiarity with a technology and/or consulting context – not crucial, but helpful in assimilating into team conversations, assisting the CEO in documentation and communication, and understanding priorities and processes.

Residency and authorization to work in the U.S. is required.
Availability 9am-5pm Eastern is strongly preferred.

We expect that annual compensation for this role will fall in the $60-90k range, though we’re open to discussing compensation outside that range.

The Process

If this role sounds like a potentially good fit for you, please reach out! Email us at hiring@hoplabs.com with an introduction and a description of what you’re looking for in the next stage of your professional development. 

In your email, share either your resume or an updated LinkedIn profile. Our team will respond with more information and next steps.

Please no staffing agencies/C2C.

We are unable to handle visa sponsorship or H1B transfers at this time.

BE AWARE OF SCAMS: Our team communicates with applicants only from a workablemail.com or hoplabs.com email address. Any similar email domains are fraudulent.