Key Secrets to land a virtual assistant job

The virtual assistant is usually a person who assists a company or an individual and who works from any place convenient for himself or herself. Due to the COVID-10 pandemic that hit globally in 2020, this role is one of the hottest remote jobs on the market. Its popularity increased as the remote working culture sky rocketed all over the world and people started to be location independent.

People getting laid off and companies going bust made lots of employees looking for side hustles to replace their day jobs or looking into starting their own business.

Below you’ll find an idea of what a virtual assistant job description looks like, what to expect and some sample CVs and skills that should be in it. If you are looking to improve your chances to land a job as a you secure your position and land your dream job.

This article is intended to help virtual assistants or the individuals who are thinking to do a career change and become a VA freelancer.

Virtual Assistant – The Job Description

Virtual assistants help their employers with daily administrative tasks and schedules. They don’t necesarily go into the office every day because they can complete their responsibilities remotely at home or in another location of their choice with internet access.

In this role, you are in charge of handling the small details to keep the company moving so that your employer can focus on large company goals.

You may communicate with your employer on multiple channels, such as email, video messaging, instant messaging, and phone calls. Other responsibilities include organizing your employer’s files, answering emails, arranging meetings and travel plans, and helping to create presentation materials.

A virtual assistant must be able to manage expense reports, orders, and confidential financial information.

Also known as virtual professionals, virtual assistants are remote administrative assistants. VAs typically work from home, performing tasks that an administrative assistant or secretary would normally do. For example, they might schedule appointments, make phone calls, plan travel arrangements, manage email, perform social tasks (such as sending thank you notes to clients), or conduct database entry.

Some virtual assistants have more-specific jobs based on their particular skill sets. For example, a virtual assistant might do bookkeeping, conduct online research, or create presentations using raw data. Virtual assistants are often independent contractors; that means they work for themselves, and the company is their client. Virtual assistants can generally work for multiple companies at once.

As with any work-at-home position, be careful to make sure that any businesses that hire you as a virtual assistant are legitimate.

What is the hourly rate for a virtual assistant

There’s no standard rate for a part-time or a full-time virtual assistant – in theory, you could charge anywhere between $1 to over $100 per hour. It all depends on the market supply and demand, the industry and the type of services you provide. In the US, a virtual administrative assistant can charge around $10-20+ per hour.

For example, if it’s a task like handling phone calls or scheduling appointments, you’d get around $8-12 per hour.

The average hourly rate of a virtual executive assistant from the US varies between $30-40+.

We’ve summarised below what you can expect to be paid hourly for your VA service depending on the type of job you’ll do:

In the United Kingdom, according to Glassdoor, the average annual salary of a virtual assistant is just under £30,000.

In an annual survey conducted by Society of Virtual Assistant in the UK the average hourly rate for a VA is £27.

These figures give you a rough idea, but it largely depends on what skills and experience you can bring to the role as well as the industry.

Take a look at how companies hire Virtual Assistants in the video below. You might want to take notes…

Common questions for a Virtual Assistant Interview

We talked with some seasoned VAs and asked them what are the most common interview questions they get when they land their job. Have a look below and make sure you have the answers to them for your next interview.

What are your skills sets?

Tell me about yourself

Will you be able to work in X timezone? How flexible are you?

What is your hourly rate?

Why do you want this job?

Tell me one time when you excelled at your job?

What do you hate and love about this job?

Resume Models for Virtual Assistants

The resume summary is a small, but important section of it. These couple of sentences have the power to prove instantly whether you are fit for the job and summarise your skills. Briefly explain what you are looking for and why you are well suited for that virtual assistant job.

Add keywords from your skills (hard and soft) to your summary so they stand out immediately in the eyes of the employer and make you noticed.

Model 1

Model 2

Find below some virtual assistant resume/CV templates

Model 1: Concise and clear

Model 2: Best for personal branding

Model 3: Minimalist but eye catching

Model 4: Three color schemes, Customize various elements

Model 5: Two-page resume with matching cover letter

Looking for more ideas on how to build your VA resume?

Then maybe you want to try the in browser resume builders from Zety. They’ve got plenty of creative templates for Virtual Assistants and not only! The cool interface will enable you to design a great looking profile in minutes and land that remote working gig you wanted so much.

Or how about Visualcv.com?

“Must have” Hot Skills for Virtual Assistants In Your VA Resume

On top of your core hard skills, a virtual assistant will need to prove its soft skills too. Most of the times, it’s just enough to write them down in your resume after sudying some solid examples like the ones we showed above.

Even if hard skills are major in landing the job, do not forget to emphasize your soft skills too.

For this case, we will list the main skills of a virtual assistant that will be relevant for any opening:

1. Communication skills Virtual communication skills are a special topic. A professional virtual assistant must speak the client’s language and be always polite. The more languages, the better. Also, if you have any customer service experience don’t forget to mention it.
2. Reliability:  Keeping in touch, providing timely reports, communicating with the client at all stages of work, not disappearing without warning, and keeping up with deadlines are the key characteristics of a good virtual assistant.
3. Resourcefulness. Study continuously and solve the issues that arrise. Continuous self-improvement and keeping up with the latest trends in the field of virtual assistants the way to be on top of your game
4. Accept feedback and improve: Understand what is needed from you, learn the client’s style and try to blend on its requests
5. Focus on details. The work of a virtual assistant includes many of detailed tasks and none of them should be missed. Your mission is to bring them all together, keep track of them and solve or allocate them.

Of course, these is not a full list of skills, but putting them on your resume and thinking about some real life examples before the interview will definitely make a difference.

Conclusion

Make sure you have an up to date and professional CV (by using the templates above) including your hard and soft skills. Working in different time zones is more often than not a mandatory requirement so you need to be commited,honest and flexible with your client.

Always improve your skills by taking online courses so you can keep your clients and happy and the recommendations flowing in.