How To Hire A Virtual Assistant
Start by tracking your time. That's something you should be doing anyway: It's an easy way to spot inefficiencies and see exactly where your time is going—compared to where you think it's going. Check out our list of the best time-tracking tools to get started and find the best choice for you. Once you know how much time you're spending on each task, it's time to do some math. When setting up a time-tracking solution, you don't want to get too granular with your tasks, but just enough to see patterns.
- Hire a Virtual Assistant and Start Delegating.
- 2. What tasks virtual assistants can do.
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For example, you might track things like "social media" or "press and PR," but you'll also want a general "administrative" category for things like scheduling appointments or calling suppliers. In this case, the numbers show that getting a VA makes financial sense for you. In this case, hiring a VA isn't worth it for you—yet. Once you have enough other tasks to delegate, you can hand this off, but for now it makes the most financial sense to keep trucking along yourself. You have around two to three hours of profitable work you could be doing in that amount of time, so you would more or less be breaking even by hiring an assistant.
This is often the trickiest position to be in, since there's no immediate monetary gain to be had. If you hate the admin work and just want it off your plate, hiring an assistant is worth it—if just for your peace of mind and to avoid burnout. It might also be a good idea to hire an assistant now if you have a busy season coming up in three months: By the time that busy season hits, you'll have your VA fully onboarded. If, however, you enjoy using those administrative tasks to wind down at the end of a work day, then the delegating pressure is off.
If the math doesn't work out how you'd hoped, there are other ways to get started. Take a look below at our section on automation to get started. If you've determined you need help, it's still worth deciding: Is a virtual assistant the way to go? Sometimes, an in-person assistant might be what you're looking for. Here are a few things to consider when making that decision:. If your business involves a lot of packing up items for shipment or running local errands, then you'll need an in-person assistant.
Your preferred form of communication: If you're totally comfortable communicating via text message, email, Slack, and the occasional phone or video call, then a remote VA will do the trick. If you find that you thrive with face-to-face communication, you might have trouble managing a virtual assistant. Availability and cost of talent: Depending on where you live, you may not be able to find a local assistant with the skillset you require.
Alternatively, you might not be able to afford a local assistant with the skillset you require. That would be a good time to turn to a VA. You know you need a VA and you have a pretty good idea of what kind of work they should be doing for you. Finding, hiring, and onboarding a contractor is an in-depth process, but here are some guidelines to get you started. The best way to find a virtual assistant is to ask your network for referrals. Just as with any position, people who come with a recommendation are much more likely to have what you're looking for.
Start by posting on LinkedIn, as well as any Slack or Facebook groups for business owners. Make sure to include the sorts of tasks that you're looking for help with and what kind of business you're running.
How outsourcing can exponentially increase your productivity
The more specific you are, the better quality of referrals people can send you. Virtual assistant services are basically online agencies for virtual assistants.
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- How to Find and Hire a Virtual Assistant.
- 1. Why you should have a virtual assistant.
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That means you don't have to source the assistant yourself, which can save you some time. The downside, of course, is that you're less likely to get someone specialized in your specific type of business model or industry. Zirtual is targeted specifically toward entrepreneurs and professionals.
UAssistMe is more affordable but has more of a focus on strictly administrative work e. Freelance marketplaces allow contractors to essentially pitch their work to you. You can post the tasks you need done, and people will respond with their information and rates.
Outsourcing 101: Hiring your first virtual assistant
Using a marketplace can open you up to a lot of qualified contractors, but that comes with a downside: You'll have to sift through a huge number of applications, many of them not so great. Popular posts will get anywhere from 25 to bids, and sometimes more. You're also forced to go through the company's messaging system and billing tools because contractors are penalized for moving outside of the built-in system. The fact that contractors have to account for the fees that the marketplace charges them often means you can get better rates elsewhere.
Guru has over three million contractors worldwide, covering a wide range of skillsets. Guru's payment options include paying by task, by milestone, or hourly; or you can pay on a recurring schedule, which could work well for an ongoing contractor arrangement.
Task Pigeon 's virtual assistant marketplace is an offshoot of its general task marketplace. While this isn't the primary business of Task Pigeon, you get the reliability of a trusted task management team vetting the assistants. For payment, you pre-purchase hours and then specify what your needs are. PeoplePerHour allows you to post a job or browse existing freelancers, and the talent pool covers a wide range of professional services, from design to web development to administrative work. Pricing is either hourly or fixed, depending on the project. Freelancer is a little more geared toward specialized freelancers think designers, copywriters, etc.
Payment options include milestone payments or upon-completion payments. While VAs are usually used by entrepreneurs, professionals, and small teams, you can use one for both your professional and personal life. Apps like FancyHands and TaskRabbit cover both professional and personal tasks. As with most professions, rates for VAs are all over the map. Here are a few things to keep in mind while you're looking at virtual assistants and their rates:. If you're looking at entry-level administrative work email management, basic customer service, etc.
If you're looking for higher-level tasks project management, content strategy, etc. Upwork has posted their average rates for various tasks , which can help you get a better estimate. Keep in mind when looking at hourly rates that some people work faster than others. Don't be fooled by ultra-low hourly rates. Paying hourly can be dicey.
If possible, we suggest paying per completed project. Quick workers will benefit, and you will know exactly what it's going to cost you before you start. These types of services can assist with basic tasks such as organizing travel, managing emails, and social media accounts and writing basic content.
The first two services are based out of the US, which means they are a bit more expensive but culturally easy to work with , while uassist. For someone looking for an alternative to the traditional office administrative assistant, these services are a great fit.
How to Know If You Need a Virtual Assistant
You also work with multiple assistants — which can make it take longer for their team to fully understand your specific needs. Meanwhile, when it comes to hiring a full-time virtual assistant, many entrepreneurs look towards Asia — with its highly educated, low-cost workforce. Over the last few years, the Philippines has surpassed India as the 1 place to find a virtual assistant due to lower cultural and language barriers. While an Indian accent can be difficult to understand, many Filipinos are able to speak English clearly.
India may still be a better location for technical backend projects, but most customer-facing interactions are better suited for a Filipino contractor. AssistNinja charges a one-time fee to find a good assistant that meets your requirements, screens and tests them before handing off the best ones to you.
A third option for finding a VA is Upwork. However, Upwork still has its place in the outsourcing community. It is a great starting point without feeling any obligation to keep a contractor on just because they are not performing as well. When hiring contractors directly it can be a bit more of an emotional burden to let them go. Upwork also has a huge selection of talent who are inclined to do their best since their rating requires it — although the rating system can be tainted as most people who have a bad experience are not inclined to leave a bad rating on the contractor since that contractor can give a likewise bad review to the company who hired him or her.
How to Find and Hire a Virtual Assistant
The other plus about Upwork is that it gives an additional layer of liability protection since the contractor technically works for Upwork and not yourself. It can also serve as an additional layer of protection against your Filipino worker not paying his or her taxes; which they rarely do in the Philippines.
In such a case where the BIR IRS but in the Philippines catches somebody getting money and not paying taxes, they can send them to prison for up to a year. An up and coming solution is Outsourcely.
Instead, they charge a monthly fee to have access to the platform and they let you hire and pay the contractor directly. In my mind, this is a better long-term solution if you can find the right person. For short-term projects this may be reasonable, however, Outsourcely might be better for long-term contractors. Regardless of which system you use to find your contractor, remember that there is far more to the job-hunt then simply posting the job, which leads us to our next step.
You now have the challenge of filtering through the massive amount of applicants to choose the right candidate. There are a few things that can help filter out the lower-quality applicants and cut down the size of the list substantially. Require a keyword to be included in the response. This will help filter out those who are applying to jobs in mass and those who are unable to follow directions.
Even if the candidate seems great, if they are unable to follow your first request, odds are there will be more problems in the future. While it could be said that is a sign of a productive worker, efficacy always trumps efficiency.
Request that the candidate takes appropriate online tests. There are many free tests that candidates can take online to prove themselves. Depending on the task required, find appropriate tests for the applicants to take that prove they are skilled in the field. Several basic tests could include an English language test or typing test. KeyHero is also great for WPM testing. Interview and ask for references. Try and do video interviews as often as possible.
Being strict in the hiring process will prevent you from having to let someone go in the future and start the entire process over again. Everyone has different skill sets. Some people are self-motivated and capable of working on their own from home. Others, however, need structure in order to be productive. Because my assistants may start out doing one thing, and then end up doing something completely different, I always strive to make sure that they have a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset.
If someone is willing to work hard and learn, you can teach them to do anything. Meanwhile, if someone is unwilling to take on new challenges, you will never be able to get value from them than you do right now.