How to Find and Hire the Best Virtual Assistant
Are you looking to hire a virtual assistant, but aren’t sure which to choose? Read on to learn how to find and hire the best virtual assistant.
Keyword(s): best virtual assistant
There are 125 million micro to medium-sized businesses across the globe. Geography formerly kept you from being in direct competition with the majority of those organizations. Now thanks to the internet, competitiveness across all business niches has exploded.
To that end, there are almost 2 billion websites online.
That staggering number should make it clear to you that in order to succeed in today’s global economy, you need to do everything you can to invest your time in big wins.
In our opinion, there’s no better way to do that than by hiring a virtual assistant.
Virtual assistants handle your menial, time-consuming tasks like scheduling meetings, sending out emails, doing research and the like so you can focus your time on growing your business.
How can you find the best virtual assistant though? Below, our team breaks down hiring platforms and key qualities you should look for when considering VA candidates.
1. Pick the Right Platform
Before you can assess a virtual assistant, you’re going to have to put together a shortlist of candidates. The best place to find prospects is on Virtual Assistant Portal.
We’ve helped a countless amount of business owners streamline their processes by connecting them with the world’s best online assistants.
We can do the same for you.
2. Pay Attention to How Professional Candidates Seem
Perceived professionalism is definitely something you should keep an eye out for when vetting the best virtual assistant candidates. One of the main critiques business owners attribute to the hiring a virtual assistant process is that, in most cases, you don’t get to meet prospects in person.
Despite that, you should have no problem getting a strong sense of a candidate’s professionalism based solely on the way they present themselves online.
For example, during initial conversations, does the virtual assistant you’re considering respond to emails quickly? Are they willing to talk to you over the phone? Are they quick to respond to voicemails?
Furthermore, when you look at their profiles on popular VA platforms or on their personal website, is their profile filled in correctly? Are things spelled right?
Looking at things like these will help you quickly figure out who is worth your time and who isn’t.
3. Understand Their Familiarity With Technology
We live in a world that’s moving fast thanks to constant advances being made on the technology-front. In order to stay ahead of the curve, you need to make sure that the best virtual assistant candidate you end up hiring is privy to the latest in admin and communication tech.
For starters, is your VA candidate familiar with Microsoft Office? Can they use software like QuickBooks? Would they be capable of uploading content to your WordPress site?
Be sure to understand what sorts of tech skills would be needed to be able to off-load all of your most cumbersome tasks. Then, try to find a virtual assistant who has the expertise that you need.
4. Ask About Project Management Experience
Project managers are excellent at juggling a multitude of tasks across a variety of deadlines. Those are skills that you want your virtual assistant to have too.
Because of the number of skills qualified project managers share with the best virtual assistants, one of the first things we recommend asking your VA about is their project management skills.
Getting an understanding of what project management means to a candidate, how they prioritize tasks, and what sorts of projects they’ve managed in the past is a good place to start.
5. Pay Extra Attention to Industry-Specific Experience
Virtual assistants are noted for how flexible they are when it comes to adapting to different industries. That being said, in a perfect world, the best virtual assistant candidate you bring on will have some experience in your line of business.
Any candidate that has a demonstrated knowledge of your industry-niche should fly to the top of your list of prospects. With industry-specific knowledge, you can save a lot of time explaining workflows and will be able to offload your tasks faster.
6. Check Availability
Given that virtual assistants work through the internet, it’s not unlikely that they’ll be managing multiple clients at once. This multiple client load could mean limited availability when it comes to your needs.
Talk to your virtual assistant prospects about availability as early as possible. Ask them how many hours they would be able to dedicate to your needs on a weekly basis. Also, get a sense of if there are any days of the week or hours during the day that they are 100% unavailable.
Seeing how well your VA’s availability matches your needs should help you filter through candidates fast.
7. Ask for References
Word of mouth is an excellent way of being able to deduce the quality of a candidate. Because of that, just like you would of anybody you hire, you should ask your virtual assistant for their references.
A few people you can contact to inquire about their experience with the virtual assistant you’re considering should allow you to paint a sufficient picture.
8. Go With Your Gut
Sometimes your gut can be hard to read. However, we’ve seen a lot of people that hire virtual assistants say that they just felt something “click” when the interviewed a particular candidate.
We’d recommend keeping an ear out for that “click” during your hiring process.
A virtual assistant is an extension of you. For that reason, you’ll want to bring somebody on who you genuinely enjoy working with.
Bringing on anybody below that standard could lead to headaches later on down the line.
You Can Find the Best Virtual Assistant
We’ve just shared with you 8 tips on finding and vetting the best virtual assistant candidates online.
To get started maximizing your business’ potential and to put into action our tips above, start your assistant search on virtual assistant portal today.
You’ll be glad you did!