Personal Assistant - Short term contract (Immediate start)
Linklaters
Your role
Purpose:
- Deliver highly proactive, efficient and effective service to 3 Directors in the BDM function
- Offer portfolio-wide support for Director’s various roles
- Managing busy calendars efficiently and proactively
- Use initiative and judgement to deliver confidential, professional service, using discretion as needed
- Provide stakeholder-focused service in fast-paced environment, adapting to a broad range of tasks
Specific Role Responsibilities:
Document and Administrative Support:
- Provide full range of PA, co-ordination and administrative tasks
- Support with occasional document work (e.g. formatting / PowerPoint)
Relationship Building and Diary / Inbox Management:
- Build close relationship with the Directors to anticipate their needs
- Understand how each Director prefers to manage their time and to prioritise meetings appropriately
- Manage the calendar proactively and effectively
- Block out working time / preparation time for meetings
- Categorise calendar to provide clear visibility of how time is allocated each week
- Regular catch-ups with each Director to run through to-do list, calendar and AOB
- Develop detailed understanding of the Directors’ respective portfolios and primary collaborators
- Identify tasks that can be managed on their behalf
- Monitor inbox’s where requested
- Build trust to gain appropriate autonomy
- Act as first point of contact for BDM colleagues on Directors’ availability
Meeting Management:
- Management of internal and external meetings across various time zones
- Confidence to query requests and pro-actively check with Directors if necessary
- Act as a gatekeeper and prioritise/move meetings as necessary using discretion
- Update spreadsheet of internal meetings / frequencies for quarterly review
Travel and Logistics:
- Manage all travel arrangements if required, ensuring all bookings, itineraries and required documents are organised in advance including pro-actively proposing meeting schedules and checking visas etc
Network Building and Collaboration:
Internal Collaboration:
- Work closely with PA to Chief Marketing Officer
- Share workload with team by providing holiday cover for other BDM Chief and Directors’ PAs
- Build a strong network to facilitate effective collaboration and swiftly identify the right contacts or resources for any task
Continuous Improvement: Professional Development:
- Continue developing competencies and skills by proactively taking ownership of personal development, upskilling and embracing automation and AI tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness
- Generate and implement process improvement ideas
Product BD and Marketing – New Joiners (DPBD and MD):
- Ensure new Product BD and Marketing joiners are added to the relevant distribution lists and regular meeting series’
Communication skills:
- Demonstrate strong communication skills
- Be approachable and flexible
- Target messages appropriately to audience
Reliability:
- Maintain high levels of accuracy and confidentiality
- Work effectively under pressure< >Prioritise workload effectively, showing flexibility with time for urgent tasks
About you
Practical Experience:
- At least 3 years' experience working as secretary/PA/EA for senior colleagues Office Skills:
- Strong understanding of MS Office, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint
- Proven IT skills and interest in new ways of doing things
- Strong organisational and self-management skills
PA Skills: - Articulate and confident in communicating at all levels
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Excellent attention to detail
- Well organised and comfortable taking initiative
- Strong stakeholder service orientation
- Proactive, adaptable, flexible and responsive approach
- Resilient and performs well under pressure
- Professional approach with strong integrity
- Appreciation of confidential nature of work
Education / Qualification
Five GCSEs grades 9-4 (or equivalent) including English and Maths
Legal Secretary / Business Administration Diploma (or equivalent) or A-Levels
Linklaters is a global law firm, providing legal services in 20 countries and through 30 offices.
Linklaters is a people business. Being best in class in the eyes of our clients means that our people must be exceptional.
We look not only for brilliant minds, but for people who will thrive in our environment: people who love working collaboratively and demonstrate the innovative, efficient, agile, entrepreneurial, and responsible mind-set we aim to bring to every interaction.
Ours is an environment of outperformance. We achieve this not with targets and incentives, but by fostering a positive, supportive, fair, and open atmosphere.
We respect and value difference but insist on inclusivity. We celebrate all aspects of
diversity and challenge any form of bias. This is vital to our ability to work as one team,
with a common goal.
What sets us apart
At Linklaters
- We offer a truly global work experience and the opportunity to be involved in strategic projects that drive innovation and shape the future of our business
- We belong to a firm that embodies its corporate social, environment, and governance responsibility commitments
- We remain focused on talent and having the best people which will result in a diverse workforce
Having got the best people, we want them to feel included, valued and respected so they can perform at their best< >We advocate speak-up culture to empower our people in sharing their voices and an open-door policy to ensure they are listened to. We invest in custom-fit career paths for our people in line with their talents and aspirations We provide agile working solutions to meet the changing needs of our people and our business We are committed to people first relationships based on mutual trust, respect, and appreciation We support the health and wellbeing of our people, providing a safe space to talk about emotions and mental health with access to expert advice as needed/
We invest in developing leaders of the future who demonstrate emotional intelligence and a passion to discover, coach and develop the talents of others
Technical Skills
This list of duties and responsibilities above is not exhaustive. It is intended to describe the general content of, and requirements for, the performance of this job. As such, the role may also include the undertaking of additional tasks as required.
Application Policy
Applications and CVs (direct or via agency) are only accepted online via the portal. Queries related to this role must be directed to the recruitment team ( tempbtrecruitment@linklaters.com) and not partners, practices or stakeholders.


