In the online world anyone can claim to be a virtual assistant. After all, it is very simple to answer yes to a few questions and then try and con your way through a project. The problem is that if you are part of a business on the opposite side of the wall trying to hire a virtual assistant you may feel that the task is impossible.
First off, you should know that the task of hiring a virtual assistant may not be easy, but it is certainly not impossible. Just like in the real world where you may interview a few bad eggs before you find an employee who meets and exceeds your expectations you should be careful to screen each applicant carefully.
One of the largest reasons that people are unsatisfied with their virtual assistants is because they blindly choose an assistant and then expect to find the answer to their problems. Here’s a hint, if you would never practice a hiring practice in real life then you should never practice the similar hiring practice online.
Fact checking all the information that a potential virtual assistant offers you and checking their references is one of the very first things that you should do. Next, you may find more success if you conduct online interviews or phone interviews to verify communication clarity.
Finally, you might consider heading to a virtual assistant agency before simply hiring a random person who claims to be an assistant online. Agencies screen the people they send out even more seriously then you can, so the same way you can expect excellence from a temp service, you can expect excellence from a virtual assistants agency.