A virtual assistant is someone who provides competitive services online which are sometimes administrative, creative, or can be technical at times. It is somehow similar to what an office secretary does. The only difference is that, the virtual assistant is working at the comfort of his/her home.
Virtual assistants use today's innovation to bring their services and communicate with clients by working remotely.
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| A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office. |
A virtual assistant's (VA) core practice and specialty is that of administration. Some virtual assistants diversify; offering additional specialties that fall under various other categories, such as marketing, website development or maintenance, creative and technical services, etc. In addition, many VAs have target niches—types of professionals they support, and those include real estate professionals, coaches (business, life, executive, etc.), speakers, authors, executive and non-executive directors and CEOs, medical and legal professionals, and consultants to name a few prominent ones. Most recently, VAs are tasked with social media monitoring and the scheduling of social media posts for personalities, brands and businesses.
Virtual assistants come from a variety of business backgrounds, but most have several years administrative experience earned in the real (non-virtual) business world working in occupations such as administrative assistant, executive assistant, secretary, legal assistant, paralegal, legal secretary, real estate assistant, office manager, etc.
You'll also need current technology, including a reliable computer, Internet connection, phone with voice mail or answering machine, fax machine or computer faxing capabilities, business and communications software and antivirus software. You'll need to be proficient at using this software, along with e-mail, the Internet and instant messaging.
If you're ready to make the move to a virtual office, go to the next page to learn about training.
Where do you find virtual assistants?
Finding virtual assistants is harder than figuring out which tasks to outsource. There are so many websites that offer virtual assistant services or list freelance virtual assistants.
- freelance websites like Fiverr and Freelancer
- job boards and classifieds like Craigslist
- social media groups such as those on LinkedIn
- Finding virtual assistants on freelance websites, job boards and social media platforms is harder than you think. It’s true that there are millions of contractors on those websites. But it’s also true that there is a lot of uncertainty when hiring someone you don’t know.
Nobody can guarantee that your chosen contractors will do a good job. And chances are, you’ll be assembling a team of virtual assistants, instead of just one individual.
How can you ensure that a team works and cooperates well together? After all, it’s a bunch of strangers trying to collaborate on projects and tasks together. Conflict can easily ensue in those cases.
Tips for finding good virtual assistants
Whether you are searching on freelance websites, social media platforms or job boards, you need some general advice on landing good virtual assistants.
Freelance websites and job boards are frequented by millions of contractors from all over the world. With so much on offer, picking just one can be overwhelming.
Most well respected freelance websites have tests for languages and certain computer skills. But don’t just rely on those tests alone. Check out the candidates’ portfolios. See if they have any good reviews. Ask for reference letters from their previous employers.
If you need someone to just enter data in Excel for you, then you don’t need to know much about your contractor. Just test him or her and see if they can do the job well. But for more complicated tasks like blog posts, you’ll need to see their portfolio and check out their reviews.
Social media websites like LinkedIn have virtual assistant groups with lots of contractors. The difference between LinkedIn and freelance websites is the issue of anonymity. It’s harder to be anonymous on LinkedIn, everything is more transparent there.
Building a good reputation on LinkedIn is not that easy for contractors. If you see that some virtual assistant has a lot of praises and recommendations, it means that he or she is legit. But you should still double check every claim and test them properly yourself as well.
