What to Look for When Hiring a Virtual Assistant
If you’re reading this, then congratulations! Your business or organization has grown to a point where you’re ready (or considering) some outside help. A virtual assistant can step in and become your right-hand person when it comes to running your business and keeping you focused!
But where to start? There are a lot of options when looking for a virtual assistant. Whether you’re posting on Indeed, through your business pages, or in Facebook Groups, you’re likely to get A LOT of responses. Filtering through so many resumes, portfolios, and websites can be overwhelming.
Here are a few things you’ll want to be sure to look out for when you’re interviewing and hiring a virtual assistant:
1. Skill Set
Before you decide to hire a virtual assistant, you should determine what your objective with their support will be. Virtual assistants can help with a variety of tasks but often have a few specialty skill sets – like social media, tech, website, project management, etc. So it is important to determine which skill sets are vital to the support you need and screen for it.
2. Time & Availability
The beauty of virtual work is that you can access talent from all over the world and only pay for the part-time support that you need (versus a full-time employee). With this flexibility, it’s important to ask what kind of availability your virtual assistant will have and what will work for you. If the tasks you have aren’t dependent on business hours in your time zone, then you can consider an internationally-based virtual assistant. Though, if you prefer meeting, talking on the phone, and having tasks completed during your business hours, then a domestic-based VA will be better for your business.
3. Can-Do Personality
Oftentimes, business owners hire a virtual assistant to help with a few select tasks and then expand on their responsibilities. Because of the versatility needed, it is life-changing to find an assistant that has a can-do personality. They should be open to learning new things, tackling challenges, and figuring things out.
4. The Cliché Soft Skills
What does almost every administrative job title read? “The ideal candidate will be organized and have a high attention to detail”. We see it all the time but don’t always realize how essential these skills are. A virtual assistant will be handling a lot of tasks for your business, whether administrative or marketing. It’s important to choose a VA that can prioritize and stay on top of their tasks so that you don’t need to constantly be following up.
Think you’re ready to start interviewing virtual assistants? Start with an Auxo Champion! We specialize in providing administrative, executive, and project management support. Schedule your possibilities to chat today to see if our team fits the bill.