If you operate a successful, thriving business, you may have encountered this situation—your office space is full, and you could use additional help to finish the necessary tasks of daily business. There are meetings to schedule, clerical work to be done, and other tasks that are taking up far too much of your valuable time you should be spending on activities that will grow your business.
When answering just one more phone call prevents you and your employees from accomplishing essential responsibilities and your space or budget is limited, it’s clear an alternative solution is necessary.
If you’ve ever experienced this scenario and thought that outsourcing the labor might be the most effective way to achieve your business goals in your current space, you’re in the right place—the web is the premiere resource to search for and hire outsourced workers.
However, how do you find the best candidates for your business’s virtual assistant tasks? Currently, you have two options—search the big online job marketplaces to find the right candidate for what you need, or access dedicated virtual assistance websites.
What is a virtual assistant agency, and what do they do?
A virtual assistant agency is a full-service solution for finding the best virtual assistant for your business. That’s because an agency focuses on nothing but supplying skilled, professional virtual assistants to accomplish a variety of tasks as dictated by client requirements.
To achieve this, most agencies begin with an initial consultation to determine your needs and expectations for a remote employee. In this way, virtual assistant agencies provide a customized, personalized experience for you and your company, and offer a selection of candidates based on your needs.
Whether you need help with sales and marketing, healthcare tasks, clerical work, calendar management, or something else, an agency will help you find the ideal assistant to perform these duties for your company.
Some virtual assistant agencies provide training to virtual assistants to be ready from day one with any client, most agencies will offer additional training to ensure the assistant is effective and efficient while in their new position.
It’s important to say that most clients or companies will need to train the new VA for the specific tasks your business needs. It’s the virtual assistant agency’s mission to find the right remote professional that meets all the needs of your business, and ensure they remain up-to-date when it comes to software, skillsets, and other unique demands the job entails.
Since virtual assistant agencies focus specifically on virtual assistants for remote positions, the process of finding the right virtual assistant is both expedited and inexpensive.
Whether you need to hire virtual assistants for a full-time or part-time position at an entry or expert skill level, virtual assistants can be found in a range of pricing options with a range of qualifications. For example, Virtual Latinos offers hourly rates as low as $8, while other US-Based virtual assistant agencies pricing starts at $25/hr
Virtual Latinos is a leader among virtual assistant agencies. Unlike other agencies that supply VAs from around the world who may not be available during US working hours, we feature certified professionals from Latin American countries within US time zones such as Mexico and Guatemala. Virtual Latinos has no recruitment, access, or setup fees and has affordable hourly rates than many other leading companies.
Perhaps more importantly, we guarantee qualified, pre-vetted talent suitable for a variety of positions. We recruit only the top assistants from our wide pool of candidates to ensure the highest quality services.
All our virtual assistants exhibit proficiency in both written and verbal English and Spanish. 90% of our assistants are four-year university graduates. In this way, Virtual Latinos can guarantee a highly qualified, talented virtual assistant who is prepared to fit right in with your business and handle every task with ease.
What is an online job marketplace?
Online job marketplaces are sites employers can access to recruit talent for a variety of different job types. They are also a dedicated space to post other hiring-related items like job listings, advertisements, and candidate resumes.
Unlike the more specific virtual assistant sites, recruiters consider online job marketplace a host for all things job search related, including company and industry information and even listings for continuing education. As a result, employers and potential candidates alike can browse an online job marketplace site to search for offers that may fit their specifications.
Some sites offer a wide variety of careers and focuses, while other sites are specific to a certain industry or career.
For example, Mediabistro is a job listing site that focuses on media professionals. Other sites are dedicated to providing job listings for certain companies—for example, Microsoft only lists its job openings within its own listing service.
There are, of course, fees for using this kind of service. Some job marketplaces follow a flat-rate model, where they allow clients to post a certain number of job listings during a set period. Flat rates can range from $219 for a single job listing for a month, up to $999 for five job listings for a month.
Others charge per click on each job listing, regardless of the outcome of the click—often between ten cents and $5 per click. Still others use a subscription-based model with unlimited postings, with costs between $99 to $395 for one month of service dependent upon industry and location.
As you might expect, there are a variety of online job marketplaces. Indeed and Glassdoor are popular sites that partnered up in 2019 to allow cross-posting over both services. LinkedIn is another popular site that offers a more social-media-style employment service.
Monster and CareerBuilder are other online job marketplaces that offer apps and augmented reality to make listings easily accessible by hiring companies and prospective employers alike. One specialized site called Christianjobs.com helps churches and other nonprofits find employment candidates.
Why use a virtual assistant company over an online marketplace?
Hiring a virtual assistant is a unique process that demands specialized services. As a result, there are certainly some benefits to be found when you choose a virtual assistant company over a more general online job marketplace.
Here are the top 7:
1. Flexibility
One of the best things about finding a virtual assistant with a virtual assistance company is the flexibility you’ll experience. Since virtual assistant websites consult with you to determine your exact needs, you know that the candidate you choose will meet your needs, even as they evolve.
Virtual assistant companies also offer candidates with flexible schedules that will fit your personal, healthy work life balance and your business’s unique demands. For example, VAs from Virtual Latinos are available in all US time zones.
2. Time Savings
A virtual assistant agency will do the work for you. No more endless searching among irrelevant candidates or choosing an inexperienced candidate you’ll need to train to meet your needs.
Instead of taking weeks to post a job, sift through resumes for the ideal keywords, schedule and conduct interviews, and train new staff, you can have a vetted and trained professional Virtual Assistant hired and ready to tackle the important tasks right away.
In fact, a virtual assistant agency is the fastest way to hire a virtual assistant. When you’re interviewing your candidates, you can do so with confidence that your choice will meet your requirements and be ready to go when you make your selection.
3. Cost Savings
In addition to being time-consuming, posting a job on an online marketplace can be expensive. From subscription fees and flat rate postings to pay per click fees, the various expenses add up—especially when it takes weeks or months to find a qualified candidate while hundreds of irrelevant job searchers click on your posting.
Fortunately, you can save money with a virtual assistant agency. Virtual Latinos has no recruitment, access, or setup fees. In fact, there are no surprise fees—just a transparent cost schedule based on your needs and budget. Better yet, because virtual assistants work remotely from home, your company doesn’t have to provide equipment, office space, or other overhead costs.
4. Experience
Virtual assistants provided by the best VA websites are guaranteed to have experience. For example, Virtual Latinos recruits and selects only the top candidates in our ever-widening pool to provide you with the best assistants available.
Our assistants are pre-vetted to make sure they have the experience to take the job, they are encouraged to take online courses to improve their skills so they’re ready to work upon hire. This is certainly not a guarantee for employees hired through an online employment marketplace.
5. Ongoing Support
Your virtual assistant agency will provide support through each stage of the hiring process. In addition, virtual assistants who work with an agency receive support as well.
If a virtual assistant needs additional training or tools to become proficient in a particular task type, the agency is responsible for supplying those resources to them. Agencies will also provide additional coaching, mentoring, and education to further virtual assistants’ skills.
This is a great benefit for you, as it allows you to focus your time and resources elsewhere. At Virtual Latinos, we provide ongoing support, we assign a dedicated customer success agent to each VA and client to ensure they provide the best work possible.
6. Better Time Management
Virtual assistant agencies recruit virtual assistants capable of performing specific tasks remotely. When you hire a virtual assistant, they will conduct these tasks remotely, without the distraction of the office environment.
For example, if you hire a virtual assistant for marketing, social media management and sales, they aren’t wasting time on busy work in an office. Instead, these experts have received training to complete the necessary tasks as efficiently as possible.
7. Satisfaction Guarantee
When you hire someone from an online employment marketplace, they may or may not meet your needs or fit within your workplace environment.
Unfortunately, if an employee hired via a marketplace isn’t a good fit, you’ll be saddled with the burden of going through the entire process again to find a new employee. With Virtual Latinos, you are not only more likely to find a virtual assistant that fits your unique qualifications—we guarantee your satisfaction. In the rare event a virtual assistant is not a good fit, we’ll help you find a replacement as soon as possible.
While the temptation to use a large online marketplace is obvious for businesses and prospective virtual assistants alike, a virtual assistant agency offers benefits for both.
Assistants working for an independent company see a wider range in employment variety, and day to day tasks, as well as higher pay and the opportunity for stronger relationships with businesses searching for a virtual assistant. Long-term employment is also much more likely with the help of a dedicated virtual assistant agency.
What Are the Best Virtual Assistant Services?
While there are several virtual assistant services online today, it’s important to find a service that fits your small business owner’s unique requirements.
• Small Businesses
Virtual assistants can focus on tasks that small business owners may not want to cover themselves, such as customer service duties and marketing. Small businesses can also face budget restrictions, and working with top virtual assistant companies can mean quickly finding a candidate that matches your requirements at a low cost.
For example, expect to pay $8-10 an hour for entry-level assistants, perfect for companies who already have procedures in place. Or, pay $11-15 an hour for mid-level virtual assistants who have more training and specialized skills that may better suit your business.
Finally, expect to pay $16-20 an hour for expert-level assistants, who are ideal as consultants to help you grow and advance your small business.
Small businesses have unique needs and Virtual Latinos is the perfect choice. We find you candidates based on your budget and desired skillset at a variety of pricing tiers. No matter your needs, Virtual Latinos can provide a virtual assistant that can help you optimize and develop your small business.
• Specialized Services
Virtual assistants hired through Virtual Latinos have the training and experience to help with any specialized services your company may need.
For example, healthcare fields require certain abilities and qualifications, and skilled assistants can provide detailed insurance management, maintain patient histories, offer medical transcription, and manage human resources.
Administrative and customer service virtual assistants can handle scheduling, complete phone calls and emails, manage customers, execute effective bookkeeping, and even keep you informed about changes and advancements in your industry.
Other specialized virtual assistants Virtual Latinos offers include property management, paralegal virtual assistants, video editing, and public relations and administrative virtual assistants.
• Rush Projects
Businesses frequently encounter projects that demand one-time, speedy completion from a short-term hire. Time-sensitive assignments are a specialized area, and Virtual Latinos prefers to focus on building lasting relationships between virtual assistants and businesses. As a result, companies like UpWork and Fiverr are better options for rush projects.
• Legal Assistants
Law offices are frequently overwhelmed with clients and cases, and hiring outside assistants may become a necessity.
Legal virtual assistants can ensure attorneys and other staff can focus on client needs and growing a firm while the virtual assistant handles other administrative tasks, such as clerical work, customer service duties, and scheduling and coordinating meetings. Virtual Latinos can provide virtual assistants with specialized skills trained specifically for legal tasks.
Top Virtual Assistant Company
After you address your business’s needs, you may decide that hiring a virtual assistant is the right choice for you.
Here at Virtual Latinos, we’re proud to be among the top virtual assistant companies and work hard to provide the best fit for your needs. If you need someone fluent in both English and Spanish, Virtual Latinos has the professional for you.
Our virtual assistants hail from countries across Latin America, from Costa Rica to Argentina and Honduras, just to name a few. No matter your needs, we provide virtual assistants to North American companies at a variety of budgets.
For more information about how the Virtual Latinos process works, contact us at your earliest convenience. Or, register your business and get started hiring a virtual assistant with us today.
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