Top 10 Rated Virtual Assistant Companies: Ultimate Guide to Hire a Virtual Assistant

Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) to help you in some business tasks is a crucial decision. A simple mistake could cause huge problems in your small business and you might find it hard to solve them.

First of all, don’t be blinded with the benefits you can enjoy once you hire a virtual assistant. While it is true that you can save time and money if you hire one, these are not the only factors that you should consider. Note that your main goal is to earn more profit, and not to save something. And to make sure that your sales will increase, you need to use your investment properly.

Consider virtual assistants as among your best assets and your collaborative business partners. To be able to do that, you must understand the different techniques on how to hire a VA who can really help you grow your business. Although it may be quite similar to hiring physical employees, there are some strategies that are entirely different. Below is a comprehensive guide and tips that you can use to achieve your goal.

Choose the task that really needs a virtual assistant

Never ever hire a virtual assistant just to satisfy your laziness. Although it is understandable that you want to add more time for you to rest, don’t use this excuse when hiring a VA. Instead, list all the tasks in your business and carefully analyze which task or tasks that really need to be outsourced. Consider the time that will be saved, and the effort that you put while you are doing it. However, make sure that your business will not suffer that much once the virtual assistant made a mistake. If the task is delicate, it’s better if you do it by yourself or delegate it to one of your current team members.

Know what expertise that you need from your virtual assistant

After making a final decision on which task you will outsource, you will now know the type of virtual assistant that you need to hire. Be clear and specific when writing your job listing ad. Create a checklist for the criteria that you need in a VA, and clearly specify the minimum requirements. Different VAs have different fields of expertise. What do you need, graphic designer and a web designer? These two individuals have different careers, in case you don’t know. In addition, don’t expect that you can hire someone who is an expert of everything that a VA does, just because you thought you can save money. There is no such thing as all-around virtual assistants, although some might claim they are.

Know how much you should pay

Generally speaking, the salary of virtual assistants depends on the type of job, as well as the field of expertise, years of experience and location of the virtual assistant. However, there’s a never ending debate about the salary difference between US-based VAs and Asians, particularly Filipinos. So to make sure that your price offer is neither too high nor too low; put more focus on the skills, experience, quality of service, and attitude of applicants. You should also understand that rates for web content writers and VA with technical work such as web coding are higher than those in administrative work. After you compare prices, you should also set your own budget and spend it reasonably.

Prepare interview questions

Don’t post your job opportunities unless you have already prepared the interview questions and hiring tests that you will give to applicants. Otherwise, you will be buried with tons of applicants and you will not have enough time to prepare them properly. For the interview questions, make them simple but relevant. Besides asking his professional history, you can also prepare a problem that might occur if you hire him. If his computer crashes while doing a project, what will he do to make sure that he can still meet the deadline? It’s also better to know more about the applicant’s personality and how he expresses himself. This is why it is still better to conduct two sets of interviews – through email and via Skype.

Prepare skills test

Besides the interview, you should also test the quality of their work. You can do this not only by asking them to show you a sample of their work, but also by giving them online skills test. The first thing you should know is their ability to understand instructions. For the test proper, write a step-by-step procedure on how to complete the test and when they should finish it. But don’t treat them like school children. Avoid giving them very basic instructions so that you can also test their analytical abilities. To test their sense of urgency, you can give them a strict time limit. Just make sure that it is still realistic.

Choose the right freelancing job site

Choosing the right freelancing job site is not easy. Some of them may have good data encoders, but have poor writers. Read and understand the Terms and Condition before joining them, especially the fees and other deductions. Make sure that they have excellent customer service and are protecting both the clients and virtual assistants. Also, read some reviews about them so you’ll have an idea on what you might experience from them. Choose the one that offers both per project base and per hour basis and decide which one fits your needs. But don’t be fooled with sites that offer unreasonably low bidding prices; as you might not get the quality of the service that you need.

But on top of everything that has been mentioned above; don’t forget that virtual assistants are humans, too. They deserve some respect. They also need money and enough time to rest. They are your partners, not your slaves. In fact, some of them are also entrepreneurs just like you.

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Top 10 Rated Virtual Assistant Companies:

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TASKBULLET

Save time and money with TaskBullet. Assign your busy work to a dedicated virtual assistant trained specifically for companies like yours-Get your time back.

ZIRTUAL

Imagine you’ve screened thousands of college-educated and highly trained assistants and prepared them for this very job—and you only had to pick one. We’ve done that for you.

EQUIVITYVA

Equivity provides high-end dedicated virtual assistant services to entrepreneurs and businesses looking for US-based administrative, marketing, paralegal and bookkeeping support.

MYTASKER

Looking for Virtual Assistant Companies? We are one of the best virtual assistant companies, providing 24/7 virtual assistant services across the globe.

ONLINEVATEAM

Online VA Team provides virtual assistant services for growing businesses. Hire Virtual Assistants at a fraction of the price of someone locally.

REDBUTLER

Looking to hire a US based professional office executive assistant? We can match you with virtual administrative services that can help and support your everyday tasks.

VIRTUALASSISTANTTALENT

Virtual Assistant Talent LLC is a virtual assistant service that provides dedicated virtual office assistants for entrepreneurs, small business owners and startups.

WOW24-7

Hire a virtual assistant at Wow24-7 and save your time, cash, nerves, and other resources. See your productivity increase as you get more time to cope with your main tasks after giving less-important routine tasks to your virtual administrative assistant.

BELAYSOLUTIONS

Grow your business with our highly trained U.S. based remote bookkeepers, administrative assistants, webmasters, and content writers.

NEYOX

Looking to hire Executive Full Time Virtual Assistant at USD 5/hr – WordPress, SEO, Social Media, Admin, CRM, Content, Ecommerce, Graphics etc.

MYMOZAK

Mozak equips real estate professionals with the power of virtual assistance and artificial intelligence. Let us help you save time, and get more tasks done!

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History of Virtual Assistant Industry

1969 became one of the most monumental moment through the entire history, not just history of the virtual assistant industry. It is the year when internet was discovered and used for the first time. Since then, we have found that there are so many things we can do using the internet, including becoming a Virtual assistant or Hiring a Virtual Assistant (commonly abbreviated as VA).

Basically, Virtual Assistant is another form of being a freelancer. The main responsibilities in working as a virtual assistant includes technical, administrative, social, and other common tasks that real office assistant does in the real office.

However, there are some reasons why employer chooses to hire a virtual assistant rather than an employee in the real world to complete the required jobs.

Skills, knowledge, and experiences are some of the main reasons in hiring a virtual assistant. Many virtual assistants offer better skills, knowledge, and experience than the real employees.

Fees are the other main reason in hiring a virtual assistant. In most cases, virtual assistant fees are much lower than regular employee’s wage, especially if the VA live and work in the third world countries. It is mainly because the VAs apply for the job through a kind of freelancing competition. VAs will compete against one another and many times fees are one of the key factors. A company is always looking for someone who can give them the best quality of work with the most affordable fee. This does not just applies to virtual assistant, it is also a reason for some companies to hiring a freelancer to do their company’s task, rather than recruiting new employees.

On the other side, people who apply for virtual assistant also have some reasons why they choose this job. Among the reasons that they may have, flexibility becomes the first and foremost important reason. Like other freelancing jobs, being a virtual assistant offers a high flexibility. It means if you choose to work as a virtual assistant, then you will be the one who manages your own time, dividing your personal time and working time. This is because in most cases, employers do not really care about what time you start and stop working. It is the virtual assistant who decides about that. The only thing that the employers put their attention on is the jobs objectives are achieved, whether it is a daily, weekly, or even monthly objective. As long as the VA meets the deadline and the objectives, employers will usually feel satisfied with the job. Of course regular and good communication between employers and his/her virtual assistant is a plus.

However, being a virtual assistant does not mean you can do whatever you want while working. This is because most employers ask their virtual assistant to work under a contract. They may also use a specific tool or software, to monitor and review what their virtual assistant do during the billed hours. It means that when you choose to work as a virtual assistant, you should have not only skills, knowledge, and vast experiences, but also high ethic and professionalism in working in order to be paid and to ensure your employer’s satisfaction.