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External hiring can be scary because you don’t know what you are getting. Everyone has made some hiring missteps, and that becomes a waste of time and money. Engaging a virtual assistant can ease the anxiety of hiring because it is a smaller commitment, and you are not bringing a stranger into your workspace. These are some tips for hiring a VA that can almost make the process mistake-proof.
Assess your needs
The greatest mistake in hiring or contracting any services for your business is getting what you want but not what you need. You may want someone to field all the emails coming into your inbox each day, so you can focus on managing your staff. When you hire someone for that task, however, if they have to defer to you on how to reply to each email, you are not getting the time-savings you were looking for, and you are spending money on top of that. Your money would be better spent hiring a project manager to report team progress back to you and answering your own emails.
Develop a value proposition
Every dollar you spend needs to contribute to bringing money into your business. Even the people you consider to be in support roles add to your bottom line. Your administrative assistant, for example, may not sell any product or work directly with clients, but because you have a professional assistant you have more time to work on client projects. Your time is worth more money when it is spent on income tasks. Understand what value this new VA would bring to your business before you hire.
Create a job description
Make it very clear, in writing, what you expect this new hire to do. Start with those high-level tasks like “manage social media” and get down to a granular level. Map out what a work day would look like for this person. Once you do that, you can easily list the skills needed to perform the job. One of the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant [LINK TO BENEFITS BLOG] is that you do not have to account for a full day of work. You may wish to start with a few hours each day working on a specific project, and, then, work up to a full time role, or not.
Build your hierarchy
Based on the job description, you can decide who the VA should report to. Keep in mind that if everyone in the organization reports to you, your time will be filled with management and oversight tasks. Depending on your strengths and the nature of your business, you may need to reserve parts of your day for other purposes. At this point, you also need to decide on the systems and protocols that will be used for your virtual assistant to complete tasks and communicate with you and your team.
Find the right candidate
All the work you’ve done so far will make this step much easier. The best way to find the right virtual assistant for you is to contact an agency like Milrich Virtual Professionals. We take your description of what you need in a VA and deliver pre-screened candidates who are ready to start right away. We save you the time of placing ads, screening resumes, and wondering if you’ve made the right choice. Our team of US-based virtual professionals are skilled, reliable, and waiting to take some of the stress out of your day.
Hiring usually happens at the most stressful time in your business, either because you are swamped with work or you are ready to level-up. Milrich wants to work with you to reduce the stress and give you a positive outcome.