Our Review of Athena Assistants - 8 Pros and Cons You Should Consider

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‍If you are a company executive, the most important commodity you need is time. Leading and growing a business requires making hundreds of minor decisions and completing several non-priority tasks that often fill up your workday, taking away from strategic objectives. 

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To make your life easier and more efficient, we recommend hiring an executive assistant (EA). EAs can take care of tasks like managing inboxes, scheduling appointments and meetings, conducting desk research, lead generation, booking flights, making hotel reservations, and even personal tasks like buying gifts and flowers, making restaurant reservations, and more. An EA works only for you (or anyone else you may delegate them to), supporting your professional and personal life.

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When searching for an EA, a staffing agency worth considering is Athena Assistants, known for their use of AI to improve assistants’ productivity. Here, we review Athena, its unique offerings, price, and some pros and cons of hiring an EA from them.

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What is Athena Assistants? 

Athena, founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, offers executives dedicated remote assistants that serve large corporations and smaller businesses. The company is based in the U.S. and its staff are overseas, mainly from the Philippines. 

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Where do Athena EAs work?

Athena’s assistants have worked with executives in Sequoia, Coinbase, Y Combinator, OpenAI, Stripe, Airbnb, Founders Fund, and even with Jeff Colyer, the former Governor of Kansas. 

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What does Athena offer?

Athena’s EAs work full-time for you, 40 hours per week. Tasks Athena EAs can do are similar to others — inbox management, email drafting, managing appointments and schedules, setting reminders, market research, lead generation, data entry, bookkeeping, etc. What makes Athena unique is its commitment to delegating: once you onboard an Athena EA, you can access their delegation playbook to better understand the tasks your assistant can do for you and access other knowledge products that can help free up your schedule.

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All Athena EAs come with a personal experience manager to oversee the assistant’s work and ensure you are satisfied. Athena also offers its assistants the option to pursue an in-house, accredited MBA program to grow alongside your business.

Where are Athena’s assistants from?

Assistants are primarily based in the Philippines and other parts of the world. Athena does not have U.S.-based assistants. 

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How does Athena hire assistants?

According to Athena, the company hires less than 1% of applicants and has interviewed over 500,000 people. Here’s how their hiring process works - 

• When hiring assistants, Athena maintains a C2 level in English as a minimum requirement. Once this is met, candidates sit for a personality test to see how well they fit in with a U.S.-based clientele. 
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• Athena then tests their skills and efficiency in completing tasks like email drafting, calendar management, etc and successful candidates get to tackle real-life projects to test how they fare in a high-pressure environment. 
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• The penultimate round is a live screening by Athena representatives to test their ability to think on their feet. 
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• Finally, assistants who clear these five rounds undergo a four-week training bootcamp to learn about Athena’s delegation system and AI tools and how they can help executives. AI tools used include ChaatGPT, HumanLoop, Zapier, FirefliesAI, and OtterAI. 
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• Athena’s proprietary AI apps help assistants draft mails according to executives’ tone and suggest ways to declutter workflow. 

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How much does an Athena assistant cost?

Full time assistants cost $3,000 per month, working 40 hours/week. 

This is slightly pricier than other white-glover services such as Leverage, that offer unlimited hours of work for $2600 a month. 

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What else does Athena offer clients?

Athena offers executives who avail of its services access to “elite delegators” — highly successful people in finance, tech, business, and other fields.

They conduct monthly delegation masterclasses and lead delegation mastermind groups. You can also participate in members-only dinners to network and connect with your Athena peers. 

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How credible is Athena?

Athena is highly credible. The agency has placed its assistants with some of the top Silicon Valley companies and its multi-stage vetting process selects highly capable assistants. 

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Pros and cons of working with Athena Assistants:

Pros:

1. You get an assistant who works only for you
   Athena exclusively offers executive assistants who work 1-1 with you full-time, 40 hours per week. Athena’s selection process aims to find an assistant tailor-made for you and who slots into your company environment easily.
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2. Your assistant is highly skilled
   Less than 1% of Athena candidates make it through its rigorous screening process. This  includes an English language proficiency check, personality test, skill review to make sure they are capable executive assistants and can execute several tasks, real-life project simulation to see how well they operate under deadlines and pressure, live screening to test their ability to think on their feet amid changing circumstances, and a four-week bootcamp to familiarize them with proprietary software.
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3. You work with an agency that has placed assistants in well-known companies
   Athena EAs have worked at leading tech firms like Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, OpenAI, Founders Fund, Sequoia, and Y Combinator. They have even worked with U.S. governors. 
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4. You become a better delegator
   As an Athena client, you get members-only access to resources that can help you delegate tasks more efficiently to free up your schedule. Athena connects you with elite delegators — highly successful executives in business, tech, finance, etc to learn how they make the most of their EAs. You can join delegator groups, access monthly masterclasses, and network through dinners and other planned events. Additionally, Athena gives clients access to its delegation playbook, which contains tips and tricks on delegating better, compiled by its clients.
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5. You can leverage the power of AI
   Athena trains its assistants to use AI tools like ChatGPT, HumanLoop, Zapier, FirefliesAI, and OtterAI to aid your business. There are also in-house apps that Athena assistants use to draft emails using your tone, manage calendars, and more.
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6. Your assistant grows along with your company
   The longer your dedicated EA works with you, Athena gives them the opportunity for them to upskill by training them through an in-house accredited MBA program. Athena also covers tuition, so you do not have to pay anything extra.    

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Cons:

1. Athena is expensive
   An Athena EA costs $3,000, which is significantly higher than other agencies who provide offshore talent. In comparison, Leverage charges $2,600 for full-time assistants who take on many roles and responsibilities.
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2. You can only avail of an executive assistant
   Athen exclusively provides you with an EA. If you need an assistant who can do graphic design, web development, or any other job, you would need to hire them separately, which can be cumbersome.

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Hire a 1% virtual executive assistant

Founded by serial entrepreneurs, Leverage Assistants is a white-glove service that helps you find 1% assistants and then teaches you how to build leverage with them. If you're interested in a strategy session to learn how to use an assistant, click here.
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Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a Ph.D. student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.

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