Hiring the wrong virtual assistant (or VA) can cost you thousands of dollars! Which doesn’t include the time you put in to train the individual on the various company protocols. Asking solid interview questions is beneficial to the hiring process. The following five questions – specifically constructed for a VA interview – offer answers that are important to know before making any hiring decisions.

What are your primary skills as a vA?

This opening question allows you to understand the depth of expertise held by a virtual assistant. Chances are good that the candidate you’re interviewing has worked with other companies before interviewing with you, so this is your chance to grasp their experience and abilities. Make sure you’re thinking about specific things you’ll need them to handle, i.e.,appointment setting, call scheduling, or email management, for example.

What are your preferred working hours?

Due to COVID-19, we’ve seen remote work become the new normal. With that said, virtual assistants aren’t working the typical 9-5. Therefore, your time zone, working hours, and tasks you need to complete will determine whether or not you’ll need your virtual assistant to work your hours. At Raso Solutions, our recruiters have access to virtual assistants that can work your preferred schedule! A follow-up question to this question would be, “How quickly do you respond during working hours?”.

Tell me about your home office setup and internet connection.

Knowing that your VA has a solid home office set up and a good internet connection gives you peace of mind that they can do their job even while miles away. On top of that, a reliable internet connection is a massive part of being a virtual assistant because 99% of the job is…VIRTUAL! If you’re giving an interview via video, this question can almost always answer itself by checking out the quality of the call.

Do you have experience with the software required for this role?

If the candidate says “Yes,” that’s great, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing if they don’t have experience. This question can be helpful to understand whether or not they have a willingness to learn. Pro tip: Ask them specific questions about their experience with the software, i.e., Have you set up a webinar call via Zoom? If so, how many people were on the call?

How will you update us on tasks/ projects? 

Task management is integral to a successful relationship with your VA. They may rely on email, expect to text or call you whenever necessary, or use a project management tool. Either way, you’ll need to know what to expect and make sure you have the logins. Emails and texts can become cumbersome if your communication styles don’t align, so we recommend a project management tool like Trello, ClickUp, or Teamwork. 

Hiring a virtual assistant allows you to free up your time so that you can focus on the revenue-generating tasks. That is why you need to ask the right questions to make sure a candidate is the right fit for you and your business needs. Comment down below if you’ll be using any of the questions listed above in your following interview! If you’d like to request a quote for our services, book a 15-minute consultation here