There’s a moment a lot of San Diego families describe when they finally call us. It’s not one big thing. It’s more like a slow accumulation – the missed dentist appointment, the dry cleaning still sitting in the car from two weeks ago, the birthday gift that didn’t get ordered, the back-and-forth emails with three different contractors that somehow fell through the cracks. And finally, someone says: I think I need a personal assistant.
They’re usually right. And they usually have no idea what that actually means, or what it’s supposed to cost, or how to find someone good. That’s what this guide is for.
We’ve been placing personal assistants in San Diego for years, and the questions we hear from families – and from candidates – tend to cluster around the same themes. What does a personal assistant actually do? How is it different from a house manager or an executive assistant? What should I pay? How do I know if someone is actually good at this job? We’re going to answer all of it here, as plainly as we can.
What a Personal Assistant Actually Does
The job title sounds straightforward, but in practice a personal assistant’s responsibilities vary more than almost any other household role. Some personal assistants work almost entirely in the personal and logistical world – scheduling, travel planning, errand management, gift sourcing, event coordination, vendor oversight. Others skew toward administrative support for a principal who runs a business or manages a complex financial life. Many do some combination of both.
What most of them have in common is this: they are the person who makes sure things don’t fall through the cracks. They’re tracking the deadlines, remembering the details, anticipating the needs, and freeing up the people they work for to focus on whatever matters most to them – whether that’s work, family, creative pursuits, or simply their own sanity.
In San Diego specifically, we see a lot of personal assistant roles that intersect with lifestyle coordination. That’s not surprising given how people live here. Families often have boats, outdoor equipment, multiple vehicles, vacation properties nearby in places like Palm Springs or Cabo, and a social calendar that would exhaust most people just to track. A personal assistant in this context might be booking the yacht maintenance, coordinating the beach house rental turnover, managing the dog’s vet appointments, and handling thank-you notes after a dinner party – all in the same week.
That’s not a simplified version of the job. That’s Tuesday.
Personal Assistant vs. House Manager vs. Executive Assistant
This comes up constantly, so let’s sort it out clearly.
A house manager is primarily focused on the physical home – vendors, maintenance, household operations, staff oversight. They’re running the property. A personal assistant is primarily focused on the principal – their schedule, their life logistics, their needs and preferences. The roles can overlap, and in smaller households one person might be asked to do both, but they’re distinct skill sets that attract different kinds of people.
An executive assistant traditionally lives in the professional world. They’re supporting someone’s business life – meetings, correspondence, travel for work, professional relationships. In the private household world, that distinction blurs considerably. We place personal assistants who handle both the family’s personal life and the principal’s business calendar, because the reality is that most of our clients don’t want to manage two separate people for those functions.
The simplest way to think about it: if the role centers on running a home, that’s closer to house management. If it centers on running someone’s life and schedule, that’s personal assistance. And if it’s both, you need to be clear about that from the start and compensate accordingly.
What Makes Someone Genuinely Good at This Job in San Diego
We’ve seen a lot of personal assistants over the years. The ones who build long careers in this field and become truly indispensable have certain things in common, and they’re not always the things you’d expect.
Anticipation is probably the most important. The best personal assistants don’t wait to be told what needs to happen. They’re three steps ahead, noticing that a passport is expiring six months from now before anyone else thought about it, or realizing that two appointments got scheduled on the same day across town and flagging it before it becomes a problem. That kind of proactive thinking is genuinely rare and genuinely valuable.
Discretion is non-negotiable. A personal assistant often knows more about a family’s life than almost anyone else – their finances, their relationships, their struggles, their plans. In San Diego, where many of our clients move in relatively visible social circles, this matters enormously. We look for candidates who have a long track record of working in private households or with high-profile individuals and who have never given anyone reason to question their discretion.
Calm under pressure matters more than most people initially think. When a flight gets cancelled and the family is in a different time zone and the hotel booking is wrong and the kids are melting down, a personal assistant who gets rattled is not going to help. The ones who quietly work the problem, stay steady, and have three alternative plans before anyone has to ask – those are the people worth keeping.
And then there’s the intangible thing that’s hardest to screen for but easiest to feel in person: genuine care. The best personal assistants we’ve placed aren’t just doing a job. They care about the people they work for. They notice when someone is stressed and quietly handle extra things without being asked. They remember the preferences and the history and the little details that make someone feel genuinely looked after. That quality makes a real difference in daily life.
San Diego Specifics Worth Knowing
San Diego has its own rhythms and its own particular demands that shape what personal assistant roles look like here.
The proximity to Mexico matters more than people outside Southern California realize. Families in La Jolla, Rancho Santa Fe, Coronado, and Del Mar frequently travel to Baja, maintain property in Ensenada or Los Cabos, or employ household staff who cross the border. A personal assistant who speaks Spanish fluently and understands cross-border logistics is worth significantly more in this market than one who doesn’t.
The outdoor lifestyle is built into the calendar in a way that’s unusual compared to other cities. Sailing, surfing, golfing, hiking – these aren’t hobbies people fit in occasionally, they’re often central to how families spend their time. A personal assistant who understands how to coordinate around these activities, manage gear and equipment, handle club memberships, and plan logistics for extended outdoor trips is going to be far more effective than someone who has no connection to that world.
The tech and biotech presence in the city has also shaped the local talent pool and the families seeking personal assistants. We see a lot of principals who are technically sophisticated, move fast, and have high expectations around systems and communication. They want someone who can keep up, who is comfortable with productivity tools and scheduling software, and who doesn’t need a lot of hand-holding.
And there’s the military and defense community, which is a significant part of San Diego’s fabric. We’ve worked with families in that world who need personal assistants capable of handling frequent relocations, irregular schedules, and the particular kind of logistical complexity that comes with a service member’s life. It’s a different kind of role that attracts a different kind of candidate.
Compensation: What You Should Actually Expect to Pay
We’re going to be direct about this because too many families come to us with unrealistic expectations, and too many candidates undersell themselves in this market.
A qualified personal assistant in San Diego – someone with real experience in private household or high-level professional settings, strong references, and the skills to genuinely make your life easier – is earning somewhere in the range of $70,000 to $110,000 annually in the current market, depending on the scope of the role, the hours, and the complexity of the household.
Roles that lean heavily administrative and stay closer to a 40-45 hour week sit toward the lower end. Roles that involve extensive travel support, evening and weekend availability, multiple properties, or family complexity – school-age children, elderly parents, business overlap – move toward the upper end and sometimes beyond it.
Benefits matter here and they matter more than some employers initially expect. Health insurance, paid time off, paid holidays, mileage reimbursement, and the possibility of a year-end bonus are all standard in competitive offers. Candidates with options – and the good ones always have options – are factoring total compensation into their decision, not just base salary.
If you’re looking to hire a personal assistant in San Diego for $40,000, you are not going to find the person you’re imagining. We’d rather tell you that plainly at the start than have you spend months frustrated that candidates aren’t meeting your expectations.
Finding Someone Good: What the Process Actually Looks Like
The families who have the best outcomes in hiring personal assistants have a few things in common. They’ve thought carefully about what they actually need before they start looking, rather than trying to define the job during interviews. They’re honest about their own style – how they communicate, how much independence they want to give, how quickly things move in their household. And they’ve given some thought to what kind of person they’re going to work well with, not just what credentials they’re looking for on paper.
The matching piece is genuinely important and genuinely hard to shortcut. A personal assistant who is extraordinary with one family can be completely wrong for another. We’ve seen it happen in both directions – candidates we knew were exceptional who struggled in one household and thrived the moment they found the right fit, and families who burned through several placements before they understood what they actually needed.
References tell you a lot, but only if you ask the right questions. We always encourage the families we work with to go beyond “was she reliable and professional” and ask things like: how did she handle it when something went wrong unexpectedly? What did she do that you weren’t expecting her to do? How did she communicate when she needed something from you? Those questions reveal character in ways that a standard reference check doesn’t.
Working interviews are worth the investment. Bring a finalist in for a paid trial day or two. Watch how they handle actual tasks in your actual environment. Pay attention to whether they ask the right questions or just plow ahead. Notice whether they’re paying attention to how you operate. That day will tell you more than a dozen phone screens.
Making the Relationship Work Long-Term
The personal assistant relationships that last – and we know of many that have lasted a decade or longer – almost always have a few things in common.
Clear expectations from the beginning. What are the actual hours? What’s in scope and what isn’t? How will performance be discussed? Is there a formal review process? These conversations feel formal and unnecessary until they’re not happening and something goes sideways.
Regular communication that goes beyond the task list. The best personal assistant relationships have a rhythm to them – a weekly check-in, a shared system for tracking priorities, a channel for flagging concerns before they become problems. The worst ones function on assumption and telepathy until something falls apart.
Reasonable boundaries, respected on both sides. A personal assistant’s job is, by nature, intimate. They are inside your life in a way that almost no one else is. The families who treat their personal assistant as a valued professional – with appropriate pay, with genuine appreciation, with respect for their time and their expertise – are the ones who keep great people. The ones who treat the role as transactional tend to cycle through a lot of candidates.
And finally: trust. You hired this person to manage things. Let them manage things. The micromanaged personal assistant is an exhausted, disengaged personal assistant. Give them the information they need, clear them to make decisions within their lane, and let them do the job you brought them in to do.
A Note on Why We Do This Work
Seaside Staffing Company has been in this industry for more than twenty years. We’ve placed personal assistants from Coronado to Carmel Valley, in households ranging from young professional couples who just need help getting organized to multi-property estates where the personal assistant is one of several household staff members.
What hasn’t changed in all of that time is why families come to us and what they’re really looking for. They want someone they can trust. Someone who makes their life actually easier, not more complicated. Someone who stays, grows with the family, and becomes genuinely irreplaceable.
Those people exist. They’re in our network. And if you’re ready to start that search, we’re ready to help you do it right.
