What to Think About When Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Have you ever felt tired of all the daily repetitive pieces of work in your to-do list that you need to manage your online business? You might want to consider getting a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is someone who does most of the clerical tasks for you. The time it frees you up for can be used for other things for your business, or as free personal time for yourself. Before you even go out there and start looking for candidates, there are a several important things to consider.
Where do you start looking? As with anything you need to research on, you can start with Google. Elance.com is also a great place to get candidates, specially because they bid for your project and you approve their bids. You also get to look at the bidders’ profiles, past feedback, skills, and historical background.
After you’ve seen and collected a few applications or resumes for the position, the next step is to do some further screening. You should definitely get references. This is a great way to gather a lot of vital information on someone who will be working for you. Make sure their skills are what you are looking for, depending on the tasks you have in mind. Take a look at your requirements, and ask them if their work habits are suited to it. For example, if you need an online dedicated support person, then it won’t work to hire someone who has erratic work schedules, which might work if all you needed was editing or something similar. If you feel it’s necessary, have them sign a confidentiality agreement as well.
The last thing to talk about is salary. Hourly rates are anywhere from $10-$50 per hour, depending on the work to be done and the experience of your virtual assistant. Per-project rates are also available if the work you need isn’t measured by the number of hours worked. It’s good to have more than a few candidates at this point so that you can effectively see what the correct rates are, or if someone is charging too high or too low.
It’s possible that you might have to go through several cycles of the steps above to find your perfect virtual assistant. That’s ok - just treat it the same as if you were hiring someone offline. Have you ever seen a business empire being operated by just one person - the owner? When you find that perfect virtual assistant, make sure to pay them well, keep them happy, sit back and let the cash come in automatically for you. As you’re business grows, you might want to get a team of virtual assistants eventually.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.