How to Hire a Virtual Assistant

Title: How to Hire a Virtual Assistant Author Name: Grainne Foley Author Website: www.ajwd.com Author Email Address: gfoley@ajwd.com Word Count: 405 Formatted to 64 characters per line Copyright Date: 2005 Article URL:

How to hire a Virtual Assistant

So you have finally made the decision to go out and hire a VA. Now what do you do? Before hiring a VA, you should put down on pen and paper exactly what you expect to obtain from this partnership.

You should always check their references and ask to see samples of their work. I recommend that you start off with a small amount of hours for the first month to ensure that you are both happy with the relationship and then you can move forward.

A lot of clients forget that VA¡¦s are highly skilled professional people, who have decided to leave corporate America to start their own business because they want more flexibility in their lives, so a lot of VA¡¦s will work around their families schedule so be sure that you find a VA who is available for the schedule that you need.

Here are some questions to help you with this:

- What tasks can the VA assist you with? - What experience would you like the VA to have? - How many hours per week/month will you need a VA? - Will this be an ongoing partnership or is it just for a specific period of time? - Are there specific hours that you need the VA to be available? - How would you like to communicate with the VA - phone/email/IM? - Do you need the VA to be on the East/West Coast? - What budget do you have for this? - Does the VA need to have specific equipment? - How does the client prefer to exchange documents & data? - Do you need more than one VA? - Would you like to have a backup VA? - When do you want to start the partnership?

When you work with AJWD, we will work with you to ensure that you find the best VA for your needs. Our VA¡¦s are already screened and are ready to hit the ground running. We conduct an initial consultation with you to locate your business¡¦ needs and to educate you about hiring a VA.

Grainne Foley, a former Human Resources Manager is the owner of A Job Well Done, a virtual staffing service created to provide top level virtual professionals to businesses. Complete information on services offered can be found on her web site at www.ajwd.com. Don't forget to subscribe to her FREE newsletter, "A Virtual Revolution".