The process of searching for a VA for your business is fairly easy (it worked well for me!) and is similar to recruiting an assistant locally. The only difference is that 100% of the process is done online – tests or surveys are conducted electronically and candidates are interviewed via VOIP services like Skype.
My Personal Hiring Experience
I found my VA via www.OnlineJobs.ph, an outsourcing website that offers foreign employers to post job openings and search among thousands of Filipino applicants for the perfect person to fill the post.
For sites like these, you will need to register yourself as an employer before you can post a job offer and get access to thousands of resumes in their database.
After registering and posting your offer, you can either wait for applicants to contact you and send in their resumes (via your contact email) or go through thousands of resumes yourself. I received at least 50 or more emails when I was searching for a VA.
As for my hiring process, the basic structure was:
1. Develop a Role Profile or Job Description – be clear on the qualities you are looking for. I was keen on finding someone with great English writing skills and I culled applicants very heavily on their written responses.
2. Advertise on www.OnlineJobs.ph or similar sites such as www.Freelancer.com, www.VWorker.com, www.Odesk.com
3. Have some simple criteria to sort through applicants on the first pass. Use templates – one for “Thanks but no thanks,” the other for “Congratulations the next step is…” This step reduced applicants from 50 to 20 for me.
4. Get people to demonstrate their abilities with some simple tests. I asked the remaining 20 applicants to do some tasks for me – transcribe my handwriting into one of my templates, read a newspaper article and write me a short blog from it, and provide me examples of their previous work. This step reduced applicants from 20 to 10, with 3 exceptional prospects.
5.Conduct a Skype interview with the Final 3. My current VA, Rai, was actually my top choice, and after the interview I knew she was the one I wanted to hire and so I didn’t bother to interview the other 2.
6. Prepare and have your selected VA sign a Confidentiality Agreement, then you’re good to go.
If you think my process is too much to handle – don’t fret! There are other ways to find and hire a Virtual Assistant.
You can actually work with a virtual staff agency to outsource the process of finding an outsourced worker.
Two sites that provide such services are www.virtualstafffinder.com and www.prialto.com where you are automatically paired with a qualified VA that best meets your needs.
Having a VA works well for me, just like I said in my previous blog and I highly recommend it to any business owner who needs assistance with work-related stuff. So if you think you could use a little help right now, go online, register in one or two outsourcing sites or virtual staff agencies and find yourself a credible, hardworking Virtual Assistant that will ultimately make work become a little easier.
