Top 5 Tips For Hiring A Virtual Assistant
Hiring an assistant for virtual work is more challenging than hiring one for regular office work. To get the best online assistant in the absence of a proper office place is no easy job. To work with an assistant who resides It is because such a responsive answering service needs to be performed by a virtual assistant that must be thoroughly trained on company products and services. Thousands of miles away makes the task tedious, and getting a virtual assistant provider is difficult too.
There are many difficulties related to the task of getting a professional virtual assistant which can be made easy by following the below-given tips. These tips can help to make the business a level up and simultaneously reduce the costs involved and increase the productivity and quality of work.
- Listing of all the tasks/services which require outsourcing:
The first and the foremost step would be to be clear about all the work which the virtual assistant shall perform so that there is more clarity on the kind of qualifications and specifications required in a candidate. For instance, if a professional is required to take care of the accounts, the list would include him to take care of all the bookkeeping, invoice preparation, financial statements preparation, and so on.
If there is no clarity on the tasks to be given to the VA, initially only general tasks can be outsourced like the setting of appointments, handling business calls, customer care, and setting of appointments, and so on.
- Listing of skills required for the job:
Once the list of work is clear, only then a list of skills required for the job can be made easily. Skills required would be of two kinds- hard skills and soft skills.
Hard skills are those which are specifically related to the particular work. As explained in the example given above, the VA for accounts work would be well versed in the preparation of particular accounting books and documents.
Soft skills are attributes that define the attitude of a person towards his/her work. And the most looked after qualities in this category are punctuality, organization skills, leadership quality, analytical thinking, and being meticulous.
These skills become the basis for the selection of the VA for the business.
- Qualifying every stage of the selection procedure:
To choose the best VA for any business, there should be various stages, and the candidate who clears all the stages with efficiency must be selected.
- The first stage:
It should mainly be to acquire talent who can be very meticulous in their approach towards their job. They should be the ones who can follow instructions very clearly without making any mistakes. Anyone who cannot fulfill this basic need should be eliminated at this step itself.
- Conducting due diligence:
Those who have cleared the first step shall then be checked for their online profiles and check on Google if there is any unpleasant information about the candidate. If any links are given by them, that needs to be checked, and also references should be followed up.
- Interview stage:
To conduct the interview, a list of questions must be prepared. Care should be taken that the questions pertain to the work, and shall also focus on the overall personality of the candidate.
- Shortlisting of the candidate:
Selecting the best candidate out of all the applicants is very similar to separating the wheat from the chaff. The candidates should be shortlisted after various comparisons made through tests and interviews. There should be continuous elimination done at different levels, to get the best online assistant for the business.
Before the main interview stage, at least 4-5 candidates must be shortlisted, to get the best professional virtual assistant for the job.
- Following the rule of 80-20:
The biggest mistake which a first-time client makes is to choose a candidate solely based on his/her technical qualification. There is no guarantee that a candidate with the most impressive testimonial shall prove to be the best VA.
The 80-20 rule states that a person must always be chosen 80% based on personality traits and 20% based on technical or professional traits.
The basic idea behind the rule is that any person who is dedicated can be given the training to work with maximum efficiency and proficiency. And anyone who is technically sound, but not personally carrying the attitude of working with productivity can do more harm than good.
Summary:
Necessary steps must be taken to choose the best virtual assistant for a business, as he is the one who is a link between the client and the customer. To entrust the services to a VA which are very essential for the success of the business, choosing the right candidate must be done with great diligence and care.
