Our motto at In The Know Resources is “do what you do best and hire or find someone to do the rest.  Hiring a virtual assistant can free up your precious time to focus on planning and money-making activities rather than the day to day minutia that gets you bogged down and distracts you from the “big picture”.

Finding the right assistant is key to lightening your load rather than adding to it.  Hiring the wrong person can create more work than it alleviates.

1.    Eliminate 80% of the applicants by creating a “hidden” screening test in the application.  Interviewing applicants can be a time consuming process, screen out the ones who don’t pay attention to details by putting a set of instructions in the application process;   If they are to e-mail their resume give them a specific subject line, ie:  20 hour/wk virtual assistant job.   If they or call, tell them to respond between 9 and 11 on Monday or Tuesday.  If they respond with Looking for a Job, or call at 3:00 pm on Wednesday, you’ll know right off they don’t pay attention to details.

2.    Ask for samples of their work.  You will get an idea of their personality, style and intelligence by seeing what they chose to represent themselves.  You may be surprised how many people won’t be able to write a cohesive sentence or don’t have anything to share to support their stated qualifications.

3.    Find out what hours they're available. Just because an assistant is virtual, it doesn't mean that you can’t specify the hours you want them to work. If you need someone to make phone calls for you, or communicate in “real time”, make sure you are in agreement before you start.  If you just need someone to do writing for you, then it doesn’t matter.  Before you get too deep into the discussion, make sure you are both on the same page.

4.    Don’t commit to full-time right away.  Give several one-time tasks to make sure you like their work.  As you feel more comfortable with their skills, (and delegating, if that is a problem for you) add more to their task list.  Let them know if you are hiring on a probationary basis.  Specify how long and what your expectations are.  Let her know that this will also give her an opportunity to evaluate the position.

5.    Use the internet to do a quick check.  Google her name, see what comes up.  You may find postings of her work online.  Do you like her “vibe”?  How does she write, is it professional, fun, creative, informative. 

When you hire help, it is important that you are decreasing your workload, not spending more time on managing and instructing than it would take to do the job yourself.  Spend some time upfront to find the right assistant and you will be glad you did.