If you're serious about changing your life, you'll find a way. If you're not, you'll find an excuse.

— Jen Sincero

Virtual assistants (VAs) are still largely underutilized in the world of online business today. I will admit, I didn't fully realize their power or potential when I finally agreed to hire two from the Philippines. I figured they could do some hashtag research for me, sort an email here and there, and maybe keep some documents organized. I was completely underestimating what specialized VAs could be doing in my business.

As Karan Kanwar wrote, the next‐generation virtual assistants will be far sexier than Alexa and Siri (Kanwar 2020). He posits that VAs, since they are still humans at the end of the day, will be able to smartly select software tools for automation in businesses, while still having that critical thinking power that's missing in a robot like Siri. VAs take the best automated elements of an Alexa, and they make it human.

Plenty of studies have predicted that by 2025, 50% of knowledge workers will use VAs daily, growing from only 2% in 2019 (Afshar 2021). That's a big jump in a short amount of time.

VAs have proven their worth to me repeatedly. They can come specialized in the specific service you offer or possess helpful skills like certifications in Google Analytics and other search engine optimization (SEO) requirements. VAs can come with a background in copyediting or be able to log into the back end of your website and optimize your web pages. They can research keywords for your blogs, and they can check the readability of one of your articles before you publish it online. If you can dream it, truly, a VA can do it.

Let's say you're gearing up to work with a VA. You're ready to bring them into your operation. How can you be sure they are going to do a thorough job for you, and not possibly put your business at risk? Let's look at how I vet my virtual assistants and greater teammates today.

Step 1: Where to Find VAs and Other Talent

The first part of finding quality VA talent is knowing where they reside. Countless people ask me where I found my VAs. In my case, my social media is prominent enough that it brings my teammates to me. This is one of the advantages of having a social media presence. If people know who you are and what you're trying to do, the right people can find you and message you. I know social media can be scary in a lot of ways, but this kind of digital footprint can make this process much easier for you.

If you don't have a large social media presence, that's perfectly fine. Some of the best places to source quality VAs are inside of online community spaces. This includes Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Quora boards, Discord channels, and Slack channels. It's free to access most of these groups, and they tend to be highly niched and active communities. Posting about needing VAs in a specifically curated community can put you in contact with some of the most quality people. I believe this is way more effective than anonymous job postings on sites like Indeed.com. (I have heard people have had success on there as well—I just believe specializing your outreach can help you sift through potentially bad candidates.)

Don't forget, you can also find these individuals on freelancing platforms. If you use Fiverr to find your VAs, filter for the specific experience level you want (Fiverr ranks freelancers based on how long they have been on the site and their reviews); then message some potential candidates. Look over their work and send them specific instructions inside of Fiverr that you can test for them to follow. If they don't follow the instructions, you can move onto the next person. There are thousands of quality VAs on these sites right now.

When I am hiring freelancers and VAs, I post to my Instagram Stories with very specific instructions on how to apply. This is my first round of weeding out those who follow instructions, versus those who do not. I specifically tell the applicants how to apply, what to type into the email subject line, and what to attach to the email (for freelancers, I ask for past writing samples; for VAs, I ask for past client references I can call to ask about their performance). If they cannot satisfy this part of the application process, I throw the application out. Following directions is a huge part of functioning inside of a side hustle and freelancing business model.

For the candidates who make it past this round, I then spend time looking over their portfolios and past work.

Step 2: Portfolio > Resume

The concept of portfolios carrying more weight than resumes is one of my favorite facets of the gig economy. Resumes are outdated, and I am going to be honest, it makes me incredibly happy. Resumes are stuffed with information about degrees, honor societies, and skill sets that the candidate believes they have. They are completely irrelevant in judging a person's ability to satisfy the requirements. When I was hiring my first freelance writer in 2019, I noticed the candidates with more extensive education tended to fall short in the time and work demands. The candidates with “lesser” qualifications surprised me. It made me realize the pretentious structure of resumes has probably prevented the actual best talent of the last decade from achieving the jobs they applied for. Not to mention, resumes favor individuals who had the money to go to college—not everyone has the time or money for that, especially today.

Portfolios, on the other hand, are direct windows into the person and what they can do. Portfolios not only show their past projects, but they are also indicative of how much time they put into formatting the portfolio. Was the portfolio edited and laid out in an aesthetically pleasing way? Were there typos? Can I tell this person put a lot of time into making a gorgeous portfolio?

After I review the branding effort, I start to review the work contained in it. I check for consistency, accuracy, creativity, and thoroughness. If I like what I see with the portfolio, it's time for the final test: putting the candidate to work in real time. Portfolios are certainly more transparent than resumes, but nothing compares to observing the candidate under a specified timeline.

Step 3: Testing Candidates in Real Time

Timeliness, especially in the world of freelancing where orders come with timers, is critically important in a VA and other virtual team members. If I tell a person an order or task is due by a certain time and day, they must meet that deadline. I would rather they ask me a hundred questions over three days than deliver a project late. Therefore, when I test these candidates, one of the major things I am observing is their ability to respond back to me quickly and deliver ahead of time. Since this is obviously a test they are taking to get the job, I want to see a yearning and hunger to get the job. I purposely give them more time than they need, around three to four days, to see if they get the job done in 24 hours. If the candidate does deliver on time, but takes all three days, I don't necessarily count them out. But I do mentally file them behind the candidates who got the work done swiftly. Procrastination has no place in the world of freelancing, which is why I want candidates to demonstrate to me immediately that they are on top of their time management.

Note: When I test my potential freelance writers, I give them actual live Fiverr orders. I will assign one Fiverr order to the 10 candidates. I compare their work and typically, one of them is satisfactory enough to deliver on Fiverr. I do pay my freelance and VA candidates for their work, even if they don't get the position. This is up to your discretion.

If you want to take the testing one step further, you can request a few references from your VAs. Feel free to contact them and ask about the VAs’ performance.

After you have taken all these steps, your candidate pool may very well go from 20 to two. That's perfectly fine—you want the quality candidates to become glaringly apparent. One or two quality VAs are more valuable than 10 disorganized VAs.

As we wrap up Part II of this book, we have one more very important chapter to tackle: building out your entire virtual team. I have mentioned how mine is structured in depth thus far, but in the following chapter I am going to neatly organize the structure and explain how you can replicate it for your own business. There is no one right way to build your virtual team, but there are certainly best practices that can make the experience relatively pain‐free.

Chapter 13 Key Points

• VAs can take any virtual business to the next level.
• Quality VAs are worth their weight in gold; don't worry about quantity.
• Online niched community spaces like Facebook groups are a great place to source your VAs.
• Develop a testing process to weed out those who can't manage their time and who perform sloppy work.