You Have the Assessment Results. Now What?

Every VRA match runs on two assessments: a DISC profile and a Keller Personality Assessment, on the assistant and on the client. Most people treat the results as something that happens during matching and then goes in a drawer. Two clients did not, and what they describe is the most practical thing on this site about working with an assistant day to day.

This is about the half nobody explains: the assessments are a management tool after the match, not just a sorting mechanism before it.

Direction One: Your Assistant Reads Yours

Brandon Lara described this at his 90-day check-in, and the detail that matters is what it let his assistant do without being asked:

“And on top of that, she’s thinking one step ahead of me, because she read my KPA. She understands my DISC. So she knows exactly where my pain points are, and she’s working on those first so that I can focus on where my wins are.”

Read that again as an operating instruction rather than a compliment. The assistant is not guessing at priorities or waiting to be told. She has a document describing how this particular person works, what drains him and what he is good at, and she is sequencing her week against it. “Working on those first” is a decision made without a meeting.

That is the part delegation usually fails on. Most assistants learn an executive’s preferences by trial and error over months, and the error half of that is expensive and awkward. A profile does not remove the learning curve, but it starts the curve somewhere other than zero.

Direction Two: You Read Theirs

Isaac Saldaña of Brockway Commercial did the less obvious thing. His first placement was not the right fit, he was matched again, and with the second assistant he went back to the paperwork:

“And these are all derived from your personality checks that I went back and studied and was able to use those as a strength to key in on how he could best help my company.”

He is describing a management decision, not an HR exercise. He read what his assistant was naturally good at and then shaped the role around it, instead of handing over a generic task list and hoping the fit emerged. What he got sixty days later:

“He is very attentive, smart, takes a lot of initiative and doesn’t need a whole lot of direction. I teach him something one time and he rolls with it.”

“Doesn’t need a whole lot of direction” is not a personality trait that appeared by luck. It is what happens when the work assigned is work the person is built for.

What Does This Actually Change in a Week?

Concretely, knowing a profile changes four things:

• Sequencing. Which tasks the assistant picks up first on a Monday, without asking.
• Detail level. Whether someone wants the summary or the full thread. Getting this wrong reads as either withholding or overwhelming, and it is the most common friction in a new placement.
• Escalation. What gets brought to you versus decided. A profile tells an assistant where your tolerance for being interrupted actually sits.
• Assignment. Which parts of the role to grow, from the client’s side. This is Isaac’s move and the one almost nobody makes.

Where Do DISC and KPA Not Help?

A profile is not a performance prediction and it will not fix a mismatch. Isaac’s first placement had the same process behind it and was still wrong, which is why the no-cost replacement exists and why he used it. The assessments make a good match work faster; they do not make a bad one work.

They also do not replace writing things down. An assistant who knows your communication style still cannot know a process that lives only in your head. If that part is missing, the piece on writing procedures people follow is the one that matters more.

How Do You Use the Results in Week One?

If you have the documents and have not opened them, three things are worth doing before the first full week:

• Read your assistant’s profile and name, out loud in your first call, the two things it says they are strongest at. Then give them one of those immediately.
• Tell them which part of your own profile you think is most wrong. People are rarely the whole document, and saying so early saves a month of them working from a caricature.
• Agree one escalation rule in writing: what always comes to you, what never does. Everything else can be worked out as it arises.

None of this takes an hour. It is the difference between an assistant who is useful in week six and one who is useful in week two, which across a year is most of what you are paying for.

The rest of that head start is training your assistant already has rather than training you provide: who pays to train your virtual assistant.

Where a VRA Executive Assistant Fits

Matching starts with the Needs Assessment and runs DISC and the Keller Personality Assessment on every candidate. Assistants complete a mandatory four-week instructor-led program before any client work, check-ins land at 14, 30, 60 and 90 days, and if the fit is wrong you can swap in a different assistant at any point at no extra cost. The executive assistant page sets out the full scope of the role.

DISC, KPA and Your Assistant: Common Questions

What is a DISC assessment used for when hiring an assistant?

At VRA it is part of matching rather than screening: every candidate takes a DISC assessment and a Keller Personality Assessment, and so does the client. The point is fit between two specific people, which matters more for an assistant working closely with one person than for a role spread across a team.

What is the Keller Personality Assessment?

A personality and thinking-skills assessment VRA runs on every candidate alongside DISC. It is used to match for fit and fast-learning ability, not as a performance prediction.

Should I read my assistant’s assessment results?

Yes, and few clients do. One commercial brokerage owner went back and studied his assistant’s results and shaped the role around what the assistant was naturally strongest at. Sixty days later he described an assistant who takes initiative and does not need much direction, which is what happens when the work assigned is work the person is built for.

Does my assistant see my assessment results?

Yes. One client described his assistant reading his KPA and DISC and sequencing her week against them: working on his weak points first so he could spend his time where he is strongest. That is the practical use of it, and it happens without a meeting.

What does knowing a personality profile actually change day to day?

Four things: which tasks get picked up first without being asked, how much detail someone wants in an update, what gets escalated rather than decided, and which parts of the role to grow. The detail level is the one that causes most early friction, because getting it wrong reads as either withholding or overwhelming.

Will the assessments stop a bad match?

No. They make a good match work faster; they do not make a bad one work. One client’s first placement went through the same process and was still wrong, which is what the no-cost replacement is for. He used it, and the second placement is the one described here.

What should I do in the first week with a new assistant?

Read their profile and name the two things it says they are strongest at, then give them one of those right away. Tell them which part of your own profile you think is wrong, because people are rarely the whole document. And agree one escalation rule in writing: what always comes to you and what never does.

Both clients above are in real estate, which is where VRA started. The assessments are not industry-specific — they describe how a person works, not what they work on — and the same pairing runs in companies with no listings anywhere in them: fifteen assistants, four functions.