Just because you hire an employee online does not mean that you have to trust their word that they are trained to do the job. In the real world you would check references and test your employee’s skills in order to ascertain if they are the right fit for your company online. Well, the same should be true when you hire a virtual assistant online and can be if you take the following steps to checkout your candidates before sealing the deal.
One of the first things you should do is ask for references from every virtual assistant candidate you are considering. Even if they cannot get references from clients online due to the nature of the virtual world (which should not be high of an expectation but in some fields its possible) they should have past employers and a few friends that you can call as character references. If a virtual assistant is not willing to provide you with references then you should not be willing to hire them.
Next, it is not a bad idea to assign a trial project or test file to a candidate to see how they do completing it. You might drop the wage a little with the guarantee that if the trial goes well there will be a direct raise after a week. This way you get an indication right away if a virtual assistant has the skills you need and if the level of work they can complete is worth your time and money or not.