Speedlancer

Posted by Mica Harvey / Content Writing Services, Freelance Virtual Assistants, Task-Based Virtual Assistants

Speedlancer is the first freelancing platform to harness the power of the crowd for speed. The Melbourne, Australia based company opens its doors in 2014, but uses a unique crowdsourcing methodology to quickly deliver tasks for clients.

Speedlancer targets business owners who would like to take a load off and increase productivity. This is especially useful for business owners because multiple tasks can be done in parallel, so what would normally take days or weeks elsewhere can all be done in just 4 hours.

Services

speedlancer reviewFounder Adam Stone explains the service also works well for startups who need to launch their minimum viable product (MVP) immediately, to get up and running and test their concepts really quickly.

In a promised turnaround time of just 4 hours, you can have a design, writing, or data entry/research task done by their high-quality, curated ‘Speedlancers.’ This distributed team is located in different time zones around the world to provide ample coverage for requests that come in at all hours of the day and night.

All the writers are promised to be native English speakers.

How it Works

The first step is to describe the micro-job you need done, whether it’s a small design project, an article or other writing job, or some research-related task. Speedlancer plans to expand into other service areas soon as well.

You create a title, job description, and your desired budget. Then the task goes out into the queue of Speedlancer tasks a qualified worker jumps on it right away.

speedlancer submit task

At the time of this writing, the average time to acceptance of a job is just 10 minutes.

Upon delivery, you are entitled to a round of free revisions, and if the work still is not done to your satisfaction, Speedlancer will re-enter it into the task-list to be re-done, or issue a refund. That way, the quality is guaranteed.

Plans and Pricing

On this platform, customers choose their prices using the sliding scale shown above, and then it is up to the Speedlancers to decide whether or not the task is a good exchange for their time and effort.

Adam recommended choosing a baseline price around the $29 mark, explaining that $29 will typically get you a 500 word blog post, a logo, banner design, poster, or business card design (just to name a few), and most smallish data-entry type work such as data mining.

If no one accepts your job within 8 hours, you’ll have an option to revise your description or increase your price. That way, the marketplace determines what a fair value for each job is.

The company takes a revenue share and passes the rest onto the individual worker who completed your job.

Speedlancer Alternatives

What sets Speedlancer apart is the turnaround time from start to finish. You don’t have to worry about submitting a job proposal to Elance or oDesk, then weeding through the dozens of applications.

For a small task, it’s more trouble than it’s worth!

The other primary alternative would be a specialist marketplace like Fiverr, but the challenge there is in sorting through all the noise to find the right seller for you. Even though I love Fiverr, I admit it can be time-consuming to find the perfect gig for what I need — and when I do, I’m frustrated because that seller is probably in high-demand and has 1-2 week lag in his promised delivery time.

Speedlancer aims to solve those pains by providing high quality service AND a fast turnaround time. Sure, you’ll pay more than $5, but it can be worth it if you’re in a hurry.

As soon as I have a chance to test out Speedlancer, I’ll report back and share my results here. Ahh, I should have had them write this article!

Your Turn

Have you worked with Speedlancer? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

5 Star VAs

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Employees

5 Star VAs is a virtual assistant recruiting service with a twist. The Philippines-based company offers both “unmanaged” and “co-managed” matchmaking services.

The company was founded in 2013 and has attracted a growing client base since then. When the co-founder, Neil Cass, reached out to me, my initial reaction was that the company sounded a little like Virtual Staff Finder, the VA recruiting service run by Chris Ducker.

Services

Like VSF, 5 Star VAs will source talented virtual assistant candidates tailored specifically to your individual needs. But unlike VSF, which now only recruits General Virtual Assistants, 5 Star VAs will help you find a dedicated team member to meet a wide variety of skillsets.

For instance, you can use their service to find general VAs, SEO specialists, content writers, bloggers, social media marketing specialists, web designers, web developers, and more.

They can provide VAs on a full-time (160 hrs per month) or part-time basis (80 hrs per month), and target startups, small businesses, solopreneurs and other entrepreneurs who need help getting it all done.

With the Unmanaged Service, you interview the candidates provided by 5 Star VAs and make your hiring decision. Then, you work directly with your new virtual assistant and train and pay them directly. There is no markup on their salary and they report to you with no intermediary.

With the Co-Managed Service, they help negotiate the salary on your behalf, handle the VA’s payroll, and pay their PhilHealth premiums (the national health insurance program).

In this case, the company also serves in an ongoing HR capacity, as a point of contact so if there are any issues at any time the client can speak to us directly.

Neil explains, “I feel that this is important as some clients may feel overwhelmed at times and not know how to approach the VA, usually it would just be a case of getting to know each other and work style, adapting to the clients way of doing things, but if this is not addressed it could lead to misunderstandings and the client deciding that working with VAs is not for them.”

It should be noted that even in the co-managed relationship, you are still in charge of managing and overseeing your VA’s work.

5 Star VAs Intro Video

How it Works

As with Virtual Staff Finder, the VAs they seek to place will be thoroughly vetted and skill checked, have a solid college educational background and converse well in English. With each recruitment, they aim to match your desired skill set and requirements before the interview process.

All 5 Star VAs work from their home offices, and have gone through a working environment checklist to make sure it is quiet, free from distractions, and has good DSL connection speeds.

“We will only endorse VAs with a proven track record of experience and a genuine willingness to work for overseas clients in a professional manner,” Neil explains.  “We are here to build a reputation for providing talented, reliable, professional VAs.”

Plans and Pricing

The fee for the Unmanaged matchmaking service is a one-time payment of $385. For this price 5 Star VAs promises to provide three top-notch candidates for you to interview via Skype and then ultimately decide which one you would like to hire.

The fee for the Co-Managed service is the same $385, however, you will earn a $200 credit towards the VA’s third month’s salary.

Un-managed General VA hourly rates typically start from around $4 an hour and go up from there depending on experience and skillset. Naturally, virtual assistants with more advanced skills command higher rates.

The Co-Managed service starts at $800 per month for a full-time VA, and payments are easy through PayPal or Credit card.

VAA Exclusive: Mention referral code VAA for 10% off your VA’s first month’s salary on the Co-Managed service.

Why 5 Star VAs?

They have a small management team on the ground in the Philippines on a year round basis, which isn’t always the case with many other VA companies.

Neil is passionate about helping fellow entrepreneurs and has a background of running small businesses in both the UK & Australia and he understands the way clients from western countries like things done and can relate to their business requirements and needs. This coupled with the local support and knowledge of his wife Imy leads to a smooth process from start to finish.

5 Star VAs Alternatives

Aside from Virtual Staff Finder (mentioned above), the other service to consider would be OnlineJobs.ph. With OnlineJobs, it’s a do-it-yourself service in that you post the job yourself, screen all the candidates, conduct interviews, and hire your favorite.

Your Turn

Have you worked with 5 Star VAs? If so, please leave a quick review of your experience below to help others with their hiring decision.

Read More

Bolton Remote

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies, Virtual Employees

Founded 2013, Bolton Remote is an offshore staffing solution based in the Philippines. They’re not so much a virtual assistant company as they are a simplified way to build a remote support team for your business.

The team is led by Patrick Linton, an entrepreneur with experience in helping Fortune 500 companies expand and improve their global operations. When I spoke with Patrick, his team had already grown to more than 80 full-time members, working out of their modern office in Manila.

Bolton Remote Services

bolton remote reviewBolton Remote is positioned as an alternative to hiring staff at any level locally or work from home freelancers.

They’re aimed at both high growth startups as well as more established businesses. If you’re suffering from talent shortages in expensive hiring markets if you’ve been burned by freelancers or other VA companies in the past, Bolton may be worth a look.

The value proposition here is the ability to find a wide range of talent all under one roof, and quickly on-board your new remote staff onto your team. Among the specific skillsets available are marketing, sales, SEO, social media, writing, customer support, graphic and web design, software development, and more.

In each case, you get a full-time virtual employee and Bolton’s model allows you to scale up as growth necessitates. Many customers end up adding 5 team-members or more, though single hires are OK too.

VAA Exclusive: Get 5% off your remote team for the first 6 months with this link!

How it Works

One thing that’s cool about Bolton is instead of inundating you with resumes that all start to look the same after a while, they actually show you their candidates, with high quality pre-recorded “video resumes.”

After you review the videos, you can set up interviews with those who look like the best fit for your team and make your hiring decision.

Team members work in your time zone and you are free to collaborate with whatever project management and communication tools you like.

Bolton Remote customers are also assigned a dedicated point-of-contact on their 24-hour Customer Happiness Team, and first-time remote staffing clients will appreciate the built-in teambuilding coaching and support.

Plans and Pricing

Rates begin at $9 an hour, or $1440 per month. Experienced staff members and those with higher-level expertise command rates in the $2000-2500 per month range.

As far as the “virtual assistants” in the Philippines go, those rates are quite high relative to many of the other companies. But a couple things to keep in mind are the overhead of the office and support staff, and the location in Manila, where the cost of doing business is higher than in some of the outer provinces.

VAA Exclusive: Get 5% off your remote team for the first 6 months with this link!

Bolton Remote Alternatives

With their focus on long-term relationships, an in-office work environment, and investment in infrastructure, the most similar company may be VirtualEmployee.com in India.

In the Philippines, TaskUs and Prialto run similar operations aimed at startups.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Bolton Remote? If so, please be sure to share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

Catalant (Previously HourlyNerd)

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants

HourlyNerd is now Catalant.

HourlyNerd aims to revolutionize consulting by matching qualified professional and top MBA students to your business. The Boston-based company was founded in 2013, and describes itself as “the future of consulting.”

Founded by 3 Harvard MBA students, the goal was to fill a void in the marketplace dominated by “old school” and high cost consulting firms.

About Hourly Nerd

hourly nerd reviewIn the way Elance matches you with qualified freelancers, Hourly Nerd offers a similar service for consultants.  In just a short time in business, they’ve already landed big name clients like Microsoft and American Apparel.

The “nerds” are rated on their communication, timeliness, work quality, and more. That helps keep the system transparent, similar to other virtual jobs platforms.

This is not a “virtual assistant” service in the traditional sense of the term, but instead gives small business owners a chance to get qualified expert help on an on-demand basis.

In most cases, your consultant will not be local to your business and you will communicate with them remotely.

How it Works

You post your project and students from the top 20 business schools in the country and select international institutions bid on the work. HourlyNerd takes  a percentage of the project fee. There are more than 500 MBAs on the platform, and the number is steadily growing.

The service is aimed at small business owners who may not have the budget to hire a “full-fledged” consulting firm or an entire team of analysts.

HourlyNerd gives them access to bright young minds at affordable rates. On top of that, the students/consultants have the opportunity to gain real-world business experience and earn some money at the same time.

HourlyNerd Intro Video

Pricing

The competitive bidding system keeps rates affordable, with even the top-pedigree consultants topping out around $100 an hour. Depending on the type of project you need done, you may find rates as low as $10 an hour — and everything in between.

Compared with the hourly rates of McKinsey or other “brand name” consulting firms (think $300/hr and up), you can see the attractive value proposition made by HourlyNerd.

With all Hourly Nerd projects, your funds are held in escrow until the project is completed to your satisfaction.

HourlyNerd Alternatives

Aside from Elance (mentioned earlier), a couple companies offer similar services. MBA & Company helps match MBA consultants with smaller companies for one-off projects, while SkillBridge also links independent contractors to companies in need (though an MBA is not required).

Have you worked with HourlyNerd? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience below to help others with their hiring decision.

Read More

Rev

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants

UPDATE: It appears Rev is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If this information is incorrect, please email me.

Rev is a professional transcription, caption, subtitle, and translation service. The company is a venture-backed internet startup and was founded in 2010.

One of the missions behind starting Rev was to give more people the freedom to work from home.
Rev has given thousands of remote workers the opportunity and freedom to work from home, while providing professional transcribing and translation services to entrepreneurs and businesses worldwide.

About Rev

The company is funded by Globespan Capital. Their headquarters is located in San Francisco, and their workers work remotely from home all over the globe.

Rev’s founder and CEO is Jason Chicola, a former Director of Marketing and Sales at oDesk. Jason started Rev with co-founder Josh Breinlinger, also a former oDesk employee.

The purpose of the platform is to remove the hassle of finding a freelancer through a marketplace to do your work. Just submit your job online via a form adding your document and any details that’ll help the freelancer and you’ll receive a file back within the specified time.

Rev boast a 99% accuracy rate, more than 50k+ happy customers, 30+ languages, and live telephone support should you have any questions.

How Rev.com Works

Services

Rev offer the following services:

  • Transcription – Typing up spoken audio, like minutes from meetings, interviews, market research and similar. There is a 12 hour turnaround time for transcription jobs.
  • Captions and Subtitles – You may want captions or subtitles added to your videos to help the hearing impaired or add an interactive element. There is a 24-48 hour turnaround time for captions and subtitles.
  • Translation – Translate any documents to or from English to another language. Turnaround starts at 24 hours but may be longer depending on the size of the job.

Plans and Pricing

Rev have flat rates across all of their services making it easy to price up a job, their rates for each of their services are as follows:

  • Audio Transcriptions – $1 per minute. Timestamps and verbatim cost an extra $0.25 per minute each.
  • Captions and Subtitles – $1 per minute.
  • Business Translations – $0.10 per word, with a minimum charge of $20 per order.
  • Certified Translations – $33 per page. A page is defined as 250 words or less on one side of A4 paper.

Rev Alternatives

Rev is the leader in transcription services, though you may be able to find lower cost options on Fiverr or via an AI tool like Trint.

For translations, you might consider TextMaster, which offers a similar range of services. They are a little more flexible with their pricing as you have the option of choosing price plans based on the experience of the freelancer.

You can also find freelancers on open marketplaces like Upwork if you feel comfortable looking through profiles and applications to find someone you want to work with.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Rev? If so, please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision, thanks.

Read More

Zerys

Posted by Mica Harvey / Content Writing Services

Zerys.com is a content marketing platform that caters to marketers, agencies, and writers. For entrepreneurs and marketers, they offer quality content at affordable rates.

The Ohio-based company was co-founded in 2007 by Steve Lazuka, who remains on as president. They target business and blogging customers and agencies who need to keep up with steady demands for high quality written content but don’t have the time to produce it themselves.

Services

zerys reviewZerys has grown to full-featured content marketing resource. While the primary service remains content writing, the company has added a number of tools to help customers make the most of their blogging efforts.

For instance, they’ll help you brainstorm the best topics and titles for your articles, even giving keyword suggestions on what search terms might result in the most traffic or social sharing.

After your content is created, the new Zerys Service Marketplace helps you find professional editors to refine and polish your content to make sure it’s in your voice. Then, you can approve and publish your content to your website with 1 click.

Zerys Intro Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc7hxv5FeWI

Plans and Pricing

Writing projects on Zerys begin at $0.01 per word, or $5 for a 500-word article. However, at those low rates, you’re not likely to attract top talent to your job.

As the rates increase, to $0.05 or $0.10 per word, your odds of receiving high quality work improve dramatically. Writers are scored on a 5-star rating system, with 5-star writers commanding the highest rates.

In submitting your work, you’ll also notice there is a parameter for how much baseline knowledge or research is required. Highly technical topics or in-depth research will necessitate higher prices.

But given the marketplace dynamic, there’s always a chance a 5-star writer takes on your lower-priced project if they need the work.

With Zerys’ SmartPost system, you can enter in your “starting price” along with the maximum price you’re willing to pay. Zerys will then post your job only to the highest rated writers, at your starting (lowest) bid offer. If no writers accept the offer, the system will gradually increase your bid — up to your pre-set max price — until someone takes your job. This means you’ll get the highest quality writers, at the lowest possible price.

Every Zerys article comes with a  100% satisfaction guarantee; you only pay if you’re 100% happy.

How it Works

1. Join the Zerys network and submit your article title or topic.

2. Use the SmartPost marketplace system to find a qualified writer, or select one your Favorite writers to do the job.

3. The writer will create your content and send it back for your review, often in less than 24 hours.

4. Review your content and either accept it, request revisions, or reject it outright and try someone new.

5. Export the content or publish it directly to your WordPress, Hubspot, or other integrated website.

Zerys Alternatives

There are other content writing marketplaces, including HireWriters, GhostBloggers, TextBroker, and more.

One of the top-rated services is the subscription-based writing service Copywriter Today.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Zerys? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

Microworkers

Posted by Mica Harvey / Project-Based Virtual Assistants

Microworkers is one of the top micro-jobs sites online. Since it’s creation in 2009, Microworkers has hosted more than 10 million micro jobs to more than 500,000 workers worldwide.

The company is based in Dallas, Texas, but manages a truly global marketplace of micro-employers and employees.

microworkers reviewNearly two-thirds of the workers live in Asia, and they log on to the site to perform the requested tasks each day.

If you own an online business, a blog, or simply need referrals or votes for your favorite contests or programs, Microworkers is definitely the place to come and have your small tasks assigned to the thousands of active workers who are ready to complete your job.

Services

So what kind of work can you get done on Microworkers.com?

I personally found the Microworkers site horribly lacking in explanation and detail. From what I can tell, it’s like an Amazon Mechanical Turk type of set-up, where you can upload bulk tasks to your “campaign,” and either have one Microworker or multiple workers complete it.

In that sense, there’s a crowdsourcing element. For instance, you might ask 5 microworkers to look at a picture and tell you what color the shoes are. If 4 people say they’re brown, odds are they’re brown and you can safely tag that picture or use it sometime you have a need for it.

I’ve heard stories of Zappos using Mechanical Turk to proofread user reviews and standardize the formatting and capitalization, and I imagine you could use Micrworkers in a similar way.

Some work examples they give:

  • Commenting on your blog or YouTube video.
  • Reviewing your new product.
  • Upvoting your content on social bookmarking sites.
  • Write an Article
  • Discuss, Review or Comment on your product or service in a forum or in other blogs
  • Follow you on Twitter
  • Sell forum signatures to you
  • Blog about your product
  • Put your banner or link on their website
  • Upload or Download videos, applications, etc
  • Bookmark your website (Digg, Buzz, etc)
  • Join a Facebook group, Like your Facebook page
  • Add someone to Facebook, Myspace, etc. friends list
  • Vote for you, for a contest entry, an article, image or video
  • Sign up with your referral link
  • Subscribe to Newsletters, RSS feeds

Now that’s some interesting stuff, if not a little spammy.

For instance, if you’re competing in a marketplace where the ranking algorithm is at least partially driven by downloads and reviews (Amazon and iTunes come to mind), employing Microworkers to help you gain some initial traction could be a viable strategy.

Plans and Pricing

Micro jobs on the platform range about $0.10 up to a few dollars, depending on their complexity and how long they might take to complete.

Microworkers is free to join for both employers and workers, and they take a 7.5% fee on each completed task from the employer, and a $0.75 fee to approve your campaign in their marketplace.

Now I’m trying to rack my brain on what kind of $0.10 jobs like the ones listed above I could get done! I’ll be sure to report back once I’m able to out the service personally.

Microworkers Alternatives

Like I mentioned above, Mechanical Turk may be the closest alternative, though they have some rules and safeguards in place that specifically forbid asking workers to download any files, for example.

Unlike MTurk, Microworkers has pre-defined job categories with different minimum payments depending on the complexity and the time efforts. Jobs which do not fit in any of the categories can be submitted as other.

Your Turn

Have you done any outsourcing or crowdsourcing with Microworkers? What did you have done? Please be sure to share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

What We Want in a Virtual Assistant, According to 2700 Survey Responses

Posted by Mica Harvey / News

For the past 5 years, I’ve been asking people a few questions on this site in the hopes of pointing them in the right direction on their virtual assistant search.

Perhaps ironically for a site dedicated to delegation and outsourcing, I answered every survey result myself for the first 3 years. (Now I have Fancy Hands do it for me!)

But over that time, I’ve collected some interesting data in what readers of this site are looking for when it comes to a virtual assistant.

I removed the duplicate entries and found this nice little upward trend on the number of surveys submitted over the recent life of this site:

So what did I ask? Read on.

What Type of Work Do You Need Done?

The first question I ask is, “What type of work do you envision your virtual assistant primarily doing for you?”

The options are:

  • Mini-projects or tasks, such as online research, scheduling, or travel planning.
  • Ongoing support, such as bookkeeping, article writing, SEO, or other business processes.
  • A one-time project, like building a website.
  • I’m not sure.

And the results:

Nearly half of all respondents were looking for ongoing business support, while another 40% were trying to find help for smaller tasks.

A handful of people were looking for virtual support for a one-off project, and surprisingly 1 in 12 respondents said they weren’t sure what a VA would do for them.

(My book has a laundry-list of potential tasks to get your creative juices flowing.)

These results match up pretty closely with my own virtual assistant usage. I tend to outsource primarily business functions, but occasionally tap into some task-based help for personal stuff.

How Many Hours per Week?

Next up, I ask how many hours a week people envision for their new hire. This is important to get a sense of how much work they have to offload, since some companies are better for full-time support, while others happily take on smaller workloads.

The options are:

  • 0-10, or on-demand as needed
  • 10-20, regular part-time help
  • 20-40, an integral part of your team

And the results:

As you can see, almost two-thirds of respondents are looking for very part-time help. I think it makes sense to start small and ramp up as you gain trust and comfort in remote delegation.

The remaining piece of the pie are those looking for 10-40 hours of virtual assistant support each week. If you’re in that boat, I feel your pain, and know what a relief it will be to get that work off your plate!

What Kind of Working Relationship Sounds Best?

Different VA companies have different approaches, so it’s important for me to find out if potential employers are looking for a dedicated hire or if they’d be OK with a pool of assistants handling their work.

The way I phrased this is, “What kind of working relationship with your VA would be best?”

And the possible answers are:

  • A dedicated assistant would be better, so I can train them to meet my needs and establish an ongoing relationship.
  • A different person can do each task, I don’t care as long as it gets done.

Here are the results:

Three out of four respondents indicated they’d prefer to work with a dedicated assistant, and I tend to be in the same boat. Though I’ve used — and continue to use — pool-based assistant services (like Fancy Hands), the bulk of my outsourcing is done with one-on-one assistants.

I think the prospect of building a long-term relationship and having someone get to know your business and your processes can be immensely valuable.

On the flip side, if you’re having a hard time imagining what a pool-based service could do for you, think along the lines of rapid template-driven customer response, proofreading, research, flight check-ins, or reservations.

Where Do You Want Your VA to Be Located?

When it comes to outsourcing, does the golden rule of real estate still apply?

While location can be important for language and time zones, I think the biggest advantage of the global talent pool is that you can find great people from all corners of the world.

So I asked readers if they cared where their prospective VA would live. The possible answers were:

  • I don’t care, as long we can communicate.
  • I would prefer to work with someone from the US, or at least a native-English speaker.
  • USA, all the way.

And in the end, these were the answers I got:

The majority of respondents were geo-agnostic, which usually opens the door to some healthy cost-savings.

I’ve worked with dedicated virtual assistants in Pakistan, Panama, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, the UK, and the US, and can safely say that communication always trumps location.

Paying more for a close-to-home VA doesn’t necessarily mean higher quality right out of the box. In fact, I’ve been severely disappointed by some “local” VAs and VA companies when my requests come back nothing how I imagined. In those cases, I have to turn around and look in the mirror because I clearly didn’t explain the job well enough!

Your Turn

How would you answer these questions? What have your outsourcing relationships looked like so far? Do they match up with the rest of the Virtual Assistant Assistant readers?

Let me know in the comments below!

Read More

Assistant Match

Posted by Mica Harvey / US Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Assistant Match is a staffing agency that matches business owners with pre-screened US-based virtual assistants to help them manage details of their company in a flexible, cost-effective way.

The company was founded in 2007 by Katie Gutierrez Miller and has a management team spread out across the country. (Practicing what they preach in remote work!)

Katie explains their service targets “small businesses and entrepreneurs who need help with administrative tasks, bookkeeping and marketing plan implementation.”

About Assistant Match

assistant match reviewAssistant Match provides a recruiting service businesses and individuals in need of professional administrative assistants, executive assistants, project coordinators, marketing assistants, editors, sales assistants, social media assistants, and client relations assistants.

These remote team members will work from their home offices and report directly to you.

One big advantage is there is no ongoing commitment or minimum hours requirement. You can have you assistant work 10 hours one week and 2 hours the next, with no penalties.

Services

How it works is you submit your job requirements and let their team find the qualified talent to fill your position. They do all the legwork of screening applicants, doing initial interviews, and checking references before they present you with the best of the best matches for your role.

Assistant Match can help find American virtual assistants with a wide range of skill-sets, including organization, accounting, marketing, customer service, transcription, personal assistance, and more.

They’ve helped fill hundreds of virtual staff positions over the years, and provide skills-training and best-practices to both the VAs and the employers.

Plans and Pricing

The company charges a one-time match fee of $395 ($95 of which is required as a deposit to begin your search). Beyond that, the hourly rate really depends on the job you’re hiring for.

For example, basic administrative assistance starts around $28 an hour, while more skilled tasks like writing, editing, or online marketing might run $40 an hour or more.

Assistant Match also handles the time reporting and invoicing, billing you directly for the hours your assistant works. They promise to take care of any tax questions and even find you a new assistant if/when one is needed.

Assistant Match Alternatives

In terms of the US-based competition, there are definitely plenty of choices. Assistant Match aims to set themselves apart from traditional in-house recruiting or even freelance searches by offering a “done for you” model.

It’s a flexible work model that allows you to scale up or scale down the hours as needed. If you have a more consistent workload, you’ll probably find some cost savings through a service like Zirtual.

However, you may not be able to find those advanced skills.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Assistant Match? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

VirtualAssistants.com

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Resources

VirtualAssistants.com is a jobs board and directory listing specializing in virtual assistant positions. The company was founded in 1999 by Belinda Stringer in response to the rising tide of dubious “work from home” scams online.

(I had a feeling they’d been around awhile given the choice domain name!) They pre-date The 4-Hour Workweek and The World is Flat by at least 7 years … helping people find virtual assistants before the term even went mainstream.

virtualassistants-com-reviewIn fact, the company was one of the first “virtual” job boards and has helped connect thousands of home-based staff with employers across the country. VirtualAssistants.com maintains an A+ rating with the BBB.

The service is headquartered in Ohio and the virtual assistants are nationwide — US-based only.

How it Works

With VirtualAssistants.com, companies and individuals seeking a US-based VA can post their job for free and receive proposals from the qualified members of the site.

One cool thing is you can select how “virtual” you want your candidate to be — meaning you can elect to only see applications from candidates within a certain radius of your business.

Services

As a prospective employer, you can use the site for either ongoing or project-based work. Around 200 jobs are posted each week, and the company pre-screens them before they hit the board to make sure both the role and the employer are legitimate.

That screening process is one element that attracts a quality pool of virtual assistant talent to pull from.

I asked Belinda if there were any service areas they were particularly strong in, and she explained, “Our focus is administrative; customer service, website help, social media, transcription, etc. But we have extremely talented VAs with experience in telemarketing, research, editing/proofreading, writing, medical coding/transcription, tech support, accounting, and more.”

As with any jobs board, the range of experience and qualifications will vary, but you have the freedom in your job description to spell out the exact role you envision along with the desired skill-sets.

Once you collect the applications, you are free to screen candidates, schedule interviews, negotiate rates, and make your hiring decision. From that point on, you’re working directly with your VA in a virtual-employee relationship and paying them directly; there is no markup or management cost from VirtualAssistants.com.

Plans and Pricing

VirtualAssistants.com is free for employers. They collect a membership fee (regularly $15 a month) from the VAs so they can get access to the job listings.

From the employer perspective, that barrier to entry — however small — helps improve the overall quality of your applicants. You know that the virtual assistant applying on your job has at least made a small investment in his or her business and takes it seriously.

The typical hourly rate for a qualified US-based VA can range from $12-50/hour and up. In this case, it’s up to you to negotiate salary terms, hours, and conditions directly with your new VA.

As an employer, you may get fewer applicants than on alternative directories or the big freelance sites, but in general you should expect a higher caliber of candidate on VirtualAssistants.com.

The VAs like it because even though there’s competition and always will be, there’s not the sense of it being a race to the bottom on price like you might elsewhere.

Your Turn

Have you hired anyone through VirtualAssistants.com? If so, please take a minute to leave a short review of your experience below.

Read More
«‹7475767778›»