How to Hire Your First (or Next) Virtual Assistant
Are you ready to make your first hire in your business, but unsure where to start? Or maybe you have hired before, but know you need a better process? In this post, I will go over the 7 steps to hiring your first VA and be on your way to freeing up more of your time so you can scale your business! Woohoo!
You can either keep reading or watch the video tutorial below:
Let's get into the 7 steps to hiring your first or next VA.
Step 1: Prepare for Outsourcing
Decide what you need help with and what exact tasks the VA will do for you.
Start by listing out everything you do in your business - every little thing - if you can't remember all of the tasks, because who can? Take a few days or a week and write down all the tasks as you do them.
If you already use a to-do list or task management tool like Asana, then this will make it a whole lot easier because you already have your list!
Side note - if you don't already use Asana, now would be a great time to start - you can begin documenting your list right within Asana and start getting it all organized, maybe add some notes on how to do the tasks - this will help you with onboarding your new VA because you will already have some tasks in Asana and you can start assigning them to them quicker and easier!
Once you have your list of all the tasks you currently do in your biz, the next step is to separate it into sub-lists, draw symbols, or use coloured highlighters - whatever works for you - and decide:
which tasks you love to do, are your zone of genius, or has to be you doing them. For example, if you're a coach, you likely will be the only one doing the actual coaching - unless you're ready to start hiring support coaches, but let's start with the VA lol.
which tasks you dislike doing, are too time-consuming, or are just not necessary for you to do. This will be the list you will be working with to plan your outsourcing.
Then, decide your budget and the amount of hours that would allow for and realistically how many of these tasks you will be able to outsource at this point in your business.
Now, go back to your second list of outsourcing tasks and sort it further - rate each task 1, 2, or 3 - based on the importance of getting that task off your plate, with 1 being the most important.
You now have your list ranked in order of importance and you can start with all the tasks you rated with 1. This will be your list of tasks to delegate and you can move onto the next step.
Step 2: Draft Your Job Description
This is an area I have been praised for when helping my clients and from applicants themselves. If you need help with this aspect or any part of this hiring process, this is a big part of what I help my clients with. Hiring can be overwhelming and daunting, I get it. So, if you are looking for support with this, then click here and let's chat about how I can help support you through this process and more!
Follow these guidelines when crafting your job description:
Keep the job description brief, but not so brief that you don't include the relevant information for applicants to identify whether they are a good fit.
Begin with an introduction of yourself and your business.
Use the the list you created in step one to describe the tasks they will be taking over in your business.
Describe the type of person you are looking for (experience, soft skills, values, etc.) - whatever is important to you.
Explain exactly how to apply (expert tip - include a detail like answering a specific question in all caps, or a specific subject line - so you can see who can pay attention to detail and follow instructions well).
Step 3: Post the Job
Post the description whereever you see fit (Facebook groups, freelance websites, employment websites, etc.).
Step 4: Receive & Review
Wait for the applications to start rolling in and then review and narrow them down to your top choices.
Step 5: Interviews
Prepare the questions you would like to discuss in the interviews and invite top choices to a video interview.
Remember, if you need help coming up with these questions or refining your hiring process, or anything else in the operations of your business, that's what I do for my clients. Click here to chat about what I can help you with in your business.
Step 6: Test Task (Optional)
If after the interview process, you are unsure who to choose, you can assign a paid test task - emphasis on paid - you should never ask someone to do free work.
Step 7: Decision Time
Make your final decision and continue on to your onboarding process.
That’s it! You’re done. I hope this helped you. Thanks for reading.
