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• How to recruit a VA - Overview

How to recruit a VA - Overview

Hiring a VA may not work the first time. It’s a different culture. And just like hiring anyone, you’ll make mistakes. But if you do what I suggest you’ll fast track your success.

Make sure you also watch the Elance Recruiting Videos as my recruting tips are the same as what I have on this page.

So I advise you just get started and trial a number of VA’s at the same time. Here’s how you do it.

• Go to http://www.onlinejobs.ph/ and create an account. It’s $50 per month. Pay it with a PayPal account. You can stop after one month, or keep your account open for as many months as you need.
• Write a job ad that is very specific to what it is you want and post it.
• Wait a day or two and then go through the applications.
• Reply to the ones that have obviously read your ad and are replying specifically about their experience doing what it is you want.
• Ask for links/samples of the work they have done, that you would like done.
• Ask for to interview them via Skype.
• In the interview ask them about their day, to hear how they speak. Can you understand them?
• Then go step them through your job ad, ask them if they have experience. When they say ‘yes’ dig deeper. How much? How often? and then ask them a question that will tell you thet they know what they are doing. Eg. Ok in excel how to you create a pie chart (or some type of thing that you know how to do).
• Look for honesty first and foremost. You want to identify and eliminate dishonest people quickly.
• Look for competency in the skills that you are asking for. You’ll see this with the examples/links they provide you with on previous work.
• Look for desire and willingness to learn.
• If they aren’t a match end up the interview quickly “Okay NAME, thanks very much for your time today. Let’s conclude this interview now. Unfortunately I’m not going to proceed with you because (I’m looking for someone with more experience), however I do wish you all the best with finding a job. Goodbye”.
• If they are a match, give them a trial. “Okay Name, I like THIS and THIS about you and your work. How much are you look to get paid per month?” (if they use their Phillipines currency google “php to aud converter” to use the currency converter and work out the figure in AUD.
• “So let’s do a weeks trial and see how your quality and speed of work is? When can you start?”
• Start them and then give them some tasks to do. Be wary of excuses of why they haven’t done things. This is bad sign. If they use an excuse 2 times, find another contractor.
• Be willing to trial 2 to 3 VA’s at the same time to see who’s the best. I do this to find the right one fast. One at a time will set you back a lot of time.
• I use basecamp to manage my outsourced team, but you can use a spreadsheet or similar when you first start.
• I use jing which is free, and I shot videos explaining what I want them to do as a video and send them the link. It’s awesome.
• I use jing also to send then screen captures.

So there’s a good summary. The remaining videos step you through this process to help you to get up and running asap.