Avoiding Virtual Assistant-Hiring Pitfalls Part 2 of 2
Avoiding Virtual Assistant Performance Pitfalls – Part II
In my last article, Virtual Assistant-Hiring Pitfalls we explored the common hot water items companies face when hiring virtual assistants and how to avoid them. Now it’s time to talk about possible performance pitfalls and how we can protect ourselves and the virtual assistant when hiring.
What’s really most important when hiring a virtual assistant is doing your due-diligence before you make the hire. Just like anyone else, virtual assistants come with their own personality, life issues, and family situations. Making sure they mesh with what you need are paramount to ensuring smooth sailing after you’ve finally agreed to work with the VA.
Virtual Houdini - The Virtual Assistant Disappearing Act
Yes, it can happen. Back when you worked in the retro bricks-and-mortar world, how often did someone simply not show up for work? They quit, right? Unfortunately this can happen with virtual assistants as well. Perhaps not as often as in the bricks-and-mortar world but it does happen.
Why do virtual assistants quit, disappear, and move on? They do, for the same reasons they quit, disappear, and move on in the bricks-and-mortar world. Maybe they needed more money. Maybe they became ill and could no longer work. Maybe a better offer came along. Maybe they didn’t like the work.
You can’t entirely avoid the situation itself but there are things you can do to minimize the damage if and when it does. Protecting yourself ahead of time for when it does and realizing that it could happen is your best defense.
- Online files. Not only does putting your files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) online facilitate working virtually, but it also protects you if and when a virtual assistant leaves. Simply change the passwords then she’s locked out and you don’t lose any files or have to go hunting them down. Check out www.xdrive.com or speak with your website administrator about putting your files up via ftp.
- Pay withholding. Why not put something in your contract with the virtual assistant that says you reserve the right to withhold pay until work files are returned?
- Passwords. As soon as a virtual worker leaves or is let go, remember to change your passwords on everything he or she had access to!
What I Say Versus What I Can Do
Would you hire someone to watch your children just because they say they’re capable of doing so? I didn’t think so. Then why would you hire a virtual assistant (or anyone for that matter) without first finding out what they can do and if they can do what they say they can do? I recommend several steps be taken to test a new virtual assistant contractor before contracting with them. These steps are modeled after our own company’s interviewing process, which has evolved over the years. It’s a lot of work on your part but very worthwhile. If you don’t want to take all of these steps then look for a good virtual staffing agency, like Team Double-ClickSM who does all of the work for you.
However, be absolutely sure that you send the virtual assistant a 1099 Miscellaneous Income tax form (in lieu of a W2, which employees only receive) each year.
- Job posting. In your case you’ll either need to make a posting on a job board, such as CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, or Craig’s List. Or you can search those boards for virtual assistants looking for work.
- Typing test. You want to know your new virtual assistant can type…accurately, right? Send him or her to www.typingtest.com and ask for the results back. Look for a high level of accuracy coupled with high speed.
- Computer skills test. Again, you want to know your virtual assistant can use Word and Excel. Send her to www.expertrating.com, ask her to take the free Word and Excel (and any others you want to know about) tests and send you the scores.
- First interview. Agree on a time and date for the first telephone interview. Then give the potential virtual assistant your number and have her call you. Have your questions ready. Did she show up on time? Did she answer your questions to your satisfaction? Do her skills still fit?
- Work personality. You simply must know if the person you are about to contract is honest, has a high level of integrity, is a team player, and so on. We recommend www.totaltesting.com, where you can ask the potential virtual assistant to take such a test. Now this one costs a few bucks. It’s up to you whether you want to pay for it or require the virtual assistant to pay for it. Just remember - if you ask her to pay for it and you don’t hire her she’s not going to be a happy camper.
- Second Interview. The cool thing about Total Testing’s work personality tests is that they give you another set of questions to ask the candidate during a second interview. Have a friend, spouse, or colleague interview this person the second time. Compare notes. How does each of you feel about this person? Will she work out?
- Contract. If you’re ready to contract this person it’s time to pull out the non-compete, non-disclosure contract we discussed in the last article. Send it to the virtual assistant for review and signing. Be absolutely sure this is signed before putting him or her to work.
- EIN and W9. We also discussed, in the last article, requiring the contractor to obtain a (free) EIN (employer identification number) to further protect you from possible employer/employee claims later on down the road. Now’s the time to ask for this, along with a completed W9 form.
This is the abbreviated version of our process. We throw in a few things like setting up a company email account, and we have a review process, which each virtual assistant goes through. A team of three HR pros discuss each candidate and determine if a contract will be offered. Because we’re a staffing agency, your screening process will look a little different from ours.
Give Me All You Got
Never send a virtual worker a ton of materials (letterheads, envelopes, brochures, etc.). It’s just a safeguard. While it is very rare that someone would leave and not return those materials to you, if they did, how much money would you have tied up in replacing all of those expensive printed materials? It’s just better not to do it in the first place. Send a virtual worker slightly more than what they need to perform the task at hand.
The Five Finger Discount - Identity Theft/Credit Card Number Theft
One of our clients’ biggest concerns has always been identity theft and credit card number theft. In all the years we’ve been staffing virtually, we’ve never seen this happen. It may be that the work personality profile is weeding out the people who might be tempted and our HR department is further ferreting out those who are less-than-desirable, but the other half of it is the contractor mentality of a virtual assistant as opposed to the employee mentality of an…employee!
You can minimize your risk by not giving out your credit card information to a virtual assistant. If you need to give the virtual assistant a credit card number for ordering products or services on your behalf, get a separate card that is used for nothing but items the virtual assistant orders for you. It’s much easier to check over your bill for erroneous charges this way.
Hours Availability
When hiring a virtual assistant, not only do you need to make sure their skills and abilities mesh with you and your business, but you must also be sure the virtual assistant has enough time to take care of your needs. Very simply ask the potential virtual assistant how many other clients she has, how many hours per week she is working, and how many hours she has to devote to you. Does it work with what you need? If not, move on.
The Rate
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never bought something without first knowing what it was going to cost. Important questions to ask before contracting a virtual assistant:
- What is the rate per hour?
- Are there different rates for different tasks?
- If so what are they?
- Do you round to the nearest hour or the nearest minute? To the nearest minute is the most desirable.
- Is there a start up fee?
- If so, how much?
- Is there a termination fee?
- If so, how much?
- Is there a minimum usage?
- If so, how much?
- Can you work within my budget? In other words, if I can only afford 10 hours per week, what happens when you’ve reached 10 hours? How is that handled?
- What are your future plans? How long do you intend to be a virtual assistant? Is this a career for you or a short-term venture for some extra cash?
My philosophy when hiring anyone, virtual assistants included, is to hire slowly and fire quickly. Trust your gut. If you don’t feel that a virtual assistant is working out, let her go immediately and don’t look back. Your gut is probably right. But do take your time hiring. Go through the paces to determine if he or she is the best fit for YOU; it’ll minimize the risk that he or she won’t work out for you later.
Guest Post by: Gayle Buske, President and CEO, Team Double-Click
Team Double-Click, Inc. provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double Click’s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or phone 888.827.9129. Click to receive your free report, 101 Ways To Work With A Virtual Assistant.
If you would like to be a Guest Poster, contact David @ Create Business Growth dot com.
Your article makes a number of assumptions that should be qualified. Virtual Assistants exist globally and as such, not all come under the tax laws you outline. Only those in the country you are referring to would be required to fill out the papers you mention.
Many VAs have joined Virtual Assistant networks where they have already been vetted and many have gone through accreditation or certification programs. Why should a client then have to submit them to a typing test or other things, if they have engaged the VA through one of those networks?
Also clients can simply place a Request For Proposal or a Job Request at many of these networks to be assured of getting a true VA. Too many at the general job lists you mentioned can call themselves a VA simply because they have a computer and can type - it goes much further than that.
There are some valid points in these two articles but there are also things I think need to be reconsidered for those who are seeking to engage a VA. I’ve been servicing clients for over 13 years and do carry their stationery stock, handle their credit card payments for them and so on.
One essential element that you’re missing is that many legitimate Virtual Assistants are business owners. A VA will generally provide a consultation in order to determine if you are a client with whom he or she wants to work. VAs are professionals and as such, will likely refuse to take any type of test.
I would never take a test for a potential client. I own my own Virtual Assistance practice and know what my capabilities are. If I am unable to perform in any way, I have available to me a whole network of VAs that I would recommend in my stead.
Anytime I work with a client there is an element of trust on both parts. Without that trust, there is no relationship, professional or otherwise.
One other thing: I have my own agreements that my clients sign, not the other way around.
Thanks for your comments on my article! You are correct about the tax laws, but this article was aimed at consumers based in the United States with regards to virtual assistants who are also US-based. And not to be dismissed, the practice of obtaining a W9 from your virtual assistant is an important task for the business owner to avoid possible IRS problems later on down the road.
To your point about virtual assistant organizations/affiliations: As a virtual staffing agency, Team Double-ClickSM interviews literally thousands of virtual assistants each year. With over 20,000 people who have registered as virtual assistants with our organization, we see firsthand the VAs who come from some of the virtual assistant organizations you mention. From our experience, not all of those organizations sufficiently screen those virtual assistants. Therefore additional screening is necessary on the part of the consumer to avoid poor “hiring” choices. Anyone can hang out a shingle and profess to be a virtual assistant. But in reality not everyone is cut out to be a virtual assistant nor are they any good at it; thus the need to screen the potential VA and protect yourself as a consumer.
Your comments suggest that a consumer (a client) should simply trust any virtual assistant who calls herself a virtual assistant. Clients are entrusting a segment of their business, their livelihood, which they are outsourcing virtually, to a person they’ve never met. I could give a hundred examples of why they need to take precautions when hiring.
I’ve used some of those boards where you post your request for proposal and bingo, you have a worker. And, I can’t name a single time where I haven’t been burned. I’ve paid money upfront and had the worker take a hike with no work returned. I’ve been forced by the board regulators to pay for shoddy work which I couldn’t use. The list goes on. Just because there is an RFP (Request for Proposal) board involved does not mean the work you will receive in turn for your money will be useable.
I’m not saying that all RFP boards or all virtual assistant organizations are bad – far from it. But it behooves the consumer to check the credentials of the organization AND the person claiming to be a virtual assistant or risk being taken advantage of by one of the not-so-great VAs who do exist. This isn’t a perfect world and everyone claiming to be a virtual assistant is not perfect. Again, as a virtual staffing agency we find that 7 out of every 10 people we interview are not of the caliber we would assign to a client. That’s a big number. Many people feel that our interviewing and screening process is too stringent. However, the people who disagree with a stringent interview process are those who don’t pass the interview process and are unfit to work as a virtual assistant.
I hope you can agree that poorly-performing virtual assistants have no place in a professional industry such as this. And I’m sure you can agree that you wouldn’t want to see a consumer, a potential client, burned by one of those virtual assistants and never return to using virtual assistants again in the future. Why ruin the industry?
Thank you for reading and thanks for your post! Unfortunately, as I mentioned in response to the last post, not all virtual assistants are legitimate business owners. Because of the nature of the business and lack of regulation, anyone – even a 10-year old – can hang out a shingle and claim to be a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants aren’t required to hold licenses or be tested by any regulatory agency so anyone can do it. This means that the consumer needs to be sure the VA is legitimate.
Personally, I wouldn’t hire a virtual assistant who refused to submit to a typing test, or any other test I deem appropriate or sign my personal non-disclosure agreement. As the person spending the money to hire the virtual assistant, I have a right to see how that virtual assistant might perform before I pay anything for services. I’d worry about someone who refused a typing test or an interview, wondering what it is they’re trying to hide. And I wouldn’t dream of hiring a virtual assistant who wouldn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement, which I provided. Again, how do I know they don’t want to run away with my business’s proprietary information? As a business owner yourself, I’m sure you can see how that would be detrimental to any business.
We’ve found, through years of staffing virtual assistants, that the trust you mention must be earned. A client doesn’t hire a virtual assistant and immediately trust that person. Nor does the virtual assistant immediately trust the client. In no relationship (professional or personal) is trust immediate. Only after both parties display that they do what they say they will do, do it well and do it consistently, is trust earned.
So when you go to the print shop, do you require them to take test? Before you hire a mechanic, do you make them take a test?
Of course not. That’s not how it works between consumers and business owners. The only people who submit to tests are employees.
Consumers of Virtual Assistant services take their chances just like everyone else and it’s incumbant upon them to make their decisions based on doing their own homework. If it turns out they don’t have a good experience, then they take their money elsewhere. Simple as that. If they hire based on price, instead of making an intelligent business decision based on value and perceived quality, skill and return on investment, that’s their fault.
And if someone isn’t running their own business, they aren’t a Virtual Assistant. It goes with the definition.
While many of the points you make are valid, no matter what type of service you are looking to outsource, it appears to me that your advice is geared toward an audience looking for cheap employees. As a highly skilled, experienced VA and business owner, I would pass on any potential client who approached me in the way you have suggested. I am not an employee, people don’t “hire” me, and potential clients certainly don’t mandate testing, dictate when & how I work, training I take, or my client evaluation and intake process.
First of all, kudos to Kathie and the others who posted such eloquent replies!
This article is based (erroneously I might add) on the assumption that business owners are looking to “hire” people to work for them, albeit out of their home. Given that you operate a Temporary Agency I can understand the error but let’s make this subject very clear.
Most Virtual Assistants are business owners not people looking for work (via temp agencies or anywhere else). Indeed in that case one would require a test, employer (tax) forms, etc in order to be considered [for the “job”]. This goes beyond the realm of reasoning however when talking about business to business relationships. I must say the article is quite apropos. I recently received an email from a business owner who just is starting up a new business and was seeking administrative assistance. Her email contained words like “resume” and “apply by…” obviously in the mindset of hiring a VA as oppose to seeking services “from” a VA. Initially, I had thought to ignore this even though I was torn because knowing what she needed, I felt I could so help her! Having read this article, I’ve decided to definitely respond (and do a little educating in the process) but certainly I will make it crystal clear: I do not wish to work for her but would consider working with her.
Recently I was looking to retain an attorney. Do you really think I would first ask him to take a test? Perhaps review his bar exam? Or better still, send him a W9 first and ask that he complete it? Of course not! All the more reason the ideas you suggest to consumers for contracting a VA is absurd. Valid points were made – not all VAs are good at what they do (just like not all lawyers are good either!) but the tone of the article is misleading. VAs, just like attorney’s, plumbers, CPAs, (and the list goes on and on) are entrepreneurs who own and operate, businesses. Period.
Thank you for your replies.
Many of the facts stated in the replies to my blog are inaccurate. I am not affliated with a temporary agency. I am the owner, CEO and President of a virtual staffing agency. I am a business owner myself. All of the virtual assistants in our pool have been screened (a 16-step process) and tested several times over. When a client comes to us with a request for work and itemizes what it is he or she wants completed, we go to our pool of tested and screened virtual assistants and match those skills with the client’s needs.
As I stated in my prior posting, because a VA is not required to hold a license, it is in the consumer/client’s best interest to request testing so as to ensure an exact fit. Anyone can say they have such and such skills but fail to have the experience or the level of experience the client is looking for. CPAs, mechanics, plumbers all hold licenses and are previously tested and or have gont to school to receive their appropriate degrees and or/certifications. No one can legally call themseleves an attorney unless they have passed the bar exam. So you would not ask an attorney for his bar exam test results. A virtual assistant is not required to have any certification or licensing.
We do not add ‘cheap employees’ to our virtual staffing pool. Many have advanced degrees and have been virtual assistants for years. Just because someone has a degree, if a client is seeking advance skills in web design or in Excel, we make sure, through testing that we can stand behind this virtual assistant when we place them with a client.
I wanted to clarify the facts because there were too many assumptions being made and misappropriation of facts from my original post.
I have a friend that owns a pressure washing business, and another that owns a roofing business, another that owns a painting business, and none of them would take a test before they started work. They do give pictures, or examples, of their work and the people that hire them do their homework before hiring them. None of them belong to an accreditating organization. They are independant contractors that have been in business for years and their work speaks for itself.
This is what is important, the work speaking for itself. I am not offended when a potential client asks for examples of my work or even testimonials, but I would be if I was asked for my resume and to take a test. I think a client needs to do their research first before hiring any private contractor. I also agree that this is easier for clients if the virtual assistant belongs to a reputable organization that will vouch for their experience and training. I understand that the business that you own screens all of the virtual assistants that apply. Clients have to trust that you are screening them well, just as much as they have to trust me that I am what I say I am.
I have a virtual assistant business. I have contracts and confidentiality agreements that I have my clients sign. I have proprietary information that gets passed through the client’s hands sometimes as well. I have to trust the client to pay me for work done. The trust involved in hiring a private contractor is a 2 way street.