Virtual Assistants

[Carlos Rovira]

Has anyone here ever used a virtual assistant? Can you recommend a good place to find/hire one? I need one that is bilingual (English + Spanish).

[Lee Smith]

I have two VA's from the Philippines that work for me full time.. I pay them hourly. I have 1 really good one, and one slot that I seem to turn over quite often.. haha I am actually getting ready to fire the one and hire another... They are contractors, so I am able to do that.. I try to give them the opportunity to be successful, but you can only do so much... If they can't do what was agreed upon initially, not worth keeping them..

When you go to hire them, be sure to go overboard describing the job to them.. I sometimes even create videos of the work process and upload them to youtube so potential candidates can see what they will be doing before they even start. This makes it easier for them to weed themselves out.

I generally post the ad, and within 24 hours I may have 20+ applicants. I then weed those down to 2-5 people and send them 8-10 essay style questions to be able to judge their english. You could have them answer in both languages if you want a bilingual person. I then weed them down even more based off their answers to the essay questions, and then I do a phone interview...  At that point I know which one or two I want...

Be aware, upworks is changing their fee structure.. I still have a bookkeeper through upworks, but with the new changes I do not think I will stay with upworks. I haven't been very happy with the quality of their workers in quite some time, so I actually went to a different site for my current VA's.

Hope this helps!