Finding And Hiring The Right Virtual Assistant

Hiring a work from home employee or Virtual Assistant can be a lifesaver when it comes to your day to day tasks. Work from home employees can save your business thousands in employee costs and overhead. But finding the best fit for your company or needs can be a challenge. It makes no difference if you have a trusted network, or are brand new to the online work world, finding the right fit will be key to your success. In this regard, we are going to give you some tips on finding and hiring the perfect virtual assistant for your company.

FINDING THE PERFECT CANADIAN VIRTUAL ASSISTANT CAN BE AS EASY AS THESE FOUR STEPS

First and foremost, to get started looking for the perfect assistant you will need to determine if you are going to be looking for a long-term commitment, or just a simple short-term freelance project that you need a little help finishing up. If you are looking for a long-term Canadian virtual assistant, there are several options. You can use online job sites like Indeed or Monster to search for long-term work from professional virtual assistants. You can also use services like Cava, Canadian Virtual Gurus or Virtual Assistant Canada (our company), these companies have pre-vetted virtual assistants ready to jump aboard. You can also find virtual assistants by using Craigslist or Kijiji. Both have some drawbacks and risks, but you can find good national candidates from these sites, just make sure to ask for references if you are trying to find virtual assistants from places where the VA’s are not vetted like Craigslist.

Now if you are looking for the short term, or want to save some money and don’t mind to hire internationally, these are a few good options. First is Upwork.com, which is a platform that allows people from around the world to bid on your job. They do discourage any work or talk outside of Upwork and will push for all transactions to stay on their platform. Secondly, there is freelancer.com, which is like Upwork but has many overseas firms vying for your business. Both companies can work, but many customers find that you often have to micromanage your VA’s, have communication problems and often the quality of work is lacking. Make sure to have clear expectations and procedures developed before you start using these companies.

ENSURE THAT YOU INTERVIEW THOROUGHLY TO GET THE BEST CANDIDATE

Secondly, the ability to efficiently interview people for any online job becomes crucial especially if you are looking for right talent that you can rely on to get the job done without having to check on them every few hours. Depending on the site you use, you can either use the web-based platform provided by the company or use Skype, Google Hangouts or a similar program. Make sure to pass on the fact that you will have a voice interview; this should weed out some of the undesirable candidates before they waste your time. Next, you will need to set up some basic questions, like how their time management skills are, what tools they use and how many working hours they can dedicate to you. Make sure to set the tone of the interview as you see fit and maintain a professional line of questioning. If you are interviewing more than one person, ensure that you use the same questions for each, and compare notes at the end of the day.

A STRONG SET OF GROUND RULES WILL ENSURE YOUR CANDIDATE KNOWS WHAT’S EXPECTED

Third, once you find that right person, set out the ground rules. These rules are going to be essential to help you succeed with a Virtual Assistant, it really is that simple. These rules can be anything from a working timeframe to a generic roadmap of what you foresee their duties are pertaining to their job. If you are the type of person who wants to be very specific, then outline their exact duties and have a list of procedures so that they have the basic work system laid out, this will save you time and a lot of extra stress. These rules & procedures will be a guide as to what you are expecting of them, and how you expect things like email, social media & other tasks to be completed. Be firm, but make sure that your assistant has the time & available information to learn and understand what you want.

WHEN YOU HIRE A CANADIAN VIRTUAL ASSISTANT, YOU GET THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Fourth, you have everything setup and your assistant is doing an excellent job. You can start to add tasks and update their to-do list or even add more assistants to your team. You will find that once you find the right virtual assistants, the job they do will become an integral part of your company’s success. Although you will still need to check in on them once a week or so, typically these people are used to working alone, and making sure your business continues to hum along as usual. If you need a real estate assistant you can check out our real estate services here.