Today’s virtual assistant services companies are becoming an extremely efficient and effective solution to handle mundane tasks on behalf of both individuals and businesses. There is no dearth of options when it comes to hiring a virtual assistant service provider. Anyone can choose to hire a virtual assistant from one of the many freelancer marketplaces. It may be difficult to judge how skilled or knowledgeable a potential hire is. Also, how to know if a virtual assistant is trained in the type of tasks they wish to assign them? Another factor is trust and reliability. How to know if they can be trusted for the data will be safe and confidentiality maintained? There have also been instances regarding the quality of work output sometimes.
There are many ways to hire a virtual assistant. But the best method so far is to hire them through a virtual assistant services company. This way, we make sure that the virtual assistants went through a thorough background check and have the right skills needed to finish the necessary tasks. By hiring them through a virtual assistant company, we have less room for worrying about giving important company information to the wrong people. This way, it’s easier to build trust and provide enough time to work on more important matters pertaining to the business.
However, there are a couple of important points to keep in mind if someone wants to hire a virtual PA.
- They should have Verbal and Written Communication Skills. Modes of communication through fax and emails are frequently done through virtual assistants. Their tasks require these skills are sending reports, managing emails, or making presentations. One must be able to communicate effectively with his/her clients both orally and through writing whether they are working for a virtual assistant company or managing their own virtual assistant business. It is essential they should have writing skills, else enroll themselves in an online course that would be a good parameter to gradually improve their communication skills.
- They should acquire updated computer skills. There are a majority of the tasks that are done with the use of a computer. Hence, must be proficient in computer skills. They should know how to use spreadsheet programs. Programs like Microsoft Word and Excel are the basics for doing virtual assistant tasks. In addition, knowledge on the internet or the World Wide Web is also very important. Advanced internet skills may also be needed if the client requires maintenance and support for his business website or database system.
- They should have multitasked ability. Probably one of the top five things a virtual assistant must do is take on multiple tasks for multiple clients and keep them all moving forward. It includes working under pressure so that the work is not affected. For the working intelligently is much more important than “hard work” but without clear objectives. If they are a smart teleworker, they will be much more successful than someone who simply works hard.
- They should have Time Management ability. This too is a very important skill, only because there could be time-zones apart and that could create serious problems. The virtual personal assistants should be smart enough to understand the work and work according to the time slot. They should handle both his/her as well as the client’s calendar. If hired for 4 hours they should be able to complete 20 items in that slot.
- They should have Quick Thinking and Effective Decision Making. The ability to think quickly and make the right decisions is vital especially when the client leaves a specific virtual assistant task. In such instances, it is digging up the available resources for possible solutions. The intuition works that there can be possible intervention to whatever problem that occurs and as well as the ability to process information quickly and act based on these.
Apart from finding a virtual assistant, it is far more important to find a virtual assistant that is a good fit for the tasks and business needs. That is why using the services of a virtual assistant company is a more reliable and safe option. Thus, the best place to hire virtual assistant online is to consider the points mentioned above, so that you can be assured of trained, skilled, experienced, and trustworthy virtual assistants.
