What is a virtual assistant agency, and why should you consider working with one? In this article, we’re going to talk about the pros and cons of having a company act as a middleman between you and your virtual assistants. But first, here’s a little background on how a virtual assistant agency works.
Think of the virtual assistant agency as a one-stop solution for all of your business needs. Agencies have VAs that can provide a diverse amount of services for your organization. These include content creation, editing and proofreading, administrative work, video and audio editing, SEO marketing, social media management, graphic design, web development, calendar management, bookkeeping, database management, email marketing, lead generation, and data mining. So if you need help getting tasks done, you can always work with them.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s move on to the pros and cons of working with a virtual assistant agency.
Pros
Reduce Time To Hire
Let’s face it, the entire recruitment process is time-consuming. You have to craft a good job description, post a job ad on an online job board, sift through all the applications, reach out to the top candidates, following up with their references, and then interview them. There’s a lot of things to do here, but this is absolutely necessary. You don’t want to hire the wrong person because that’s just a waste of your time and money.
Fortunately, you can avoid all the trouble if you partner with a virtual assistant agency because they already have a team of VAs who are ready to meet their clients’ needs. All you have to do is to tell them what you’re looking for, and they should have a VA ready for you within a few days.
Access To Top Talent
Finding the right person for the right role isn’t as easy as simply posting jobs online. It’s like looking for a needle in the haystack, although some do get lucky in their search. What makes working with a virtual assistant agency so attractive is that you will have access to some of the best talent available without the need to do the searching yourself.
Agencies have a reputation to protect so they are unlikely to send incompetent VAs your way. They have to attract, hire, and retain workers who are the cream of the crop in their respective fields or their clients will take their business elsewhere.
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Scalability
With the help of a virtual assistant agency, you can scale up and down without significant effort on your part and adapt to changing workloads. During the busy season, you can bring in additional personnel to help you cope with your clients’ demands, and once that is over, you can scale down without losses. You can’t scale up and down that fast if you’re working with independent virtual assistants.
Support
Don’t like the virtual assistant they assigned you? Ask the virtual assistant agency to get you another one, and they’ll match you with a replacement. In some cases, you may even get your money back if you’re not happy with their services. You can’t do that with an independent virtual assistant that you hired yourself. If you part ways with an independent VA, you will have to go through the entire recruitment process again to find a replacement. That is such a waste of time and money.
There are also instances where you will be assigned a project manager to supervise your VAs. You can just communicate with the project manager, and he/she will forward your instructions to the VAs.
Trained VAs
If you do the hiring yourself, you will have to train them yourself, but when you work with a virtual assistant agency, they will make sure that they pick someone who can hit the ground running with minimal training. However, you have to remember that you still have to give your VAs time to learn the ropes of your business so they can get to know your workflow.
Cons
The Price
Okay, let’s face it. This is the biggest drawback when you work with a virtual assistant agency, and it is the main reason why a lot of people prefer to do the hiring themselves. Agencies can be expensive middlemen because they need to cover their overhead costs, including employee payroll, utilities, and office infrastructures. Some may even require you to pay a monthly fee whether or not you use their service.
Unable To See The Portfolios Of Individuals VAs
You may get access to top talent, but you can’t exactly check on the portfolio of the VAs that work for the virtual assistant agency. Chances are, they’ll just ask you some questions about what tasks you want them to work on or what type of VA you’re looking for, so there’s still a chance that you won’t like the VA they assign you. However, this isn’t a deal-breaker.
If partnering with a virtual assistant agency isn’t an option for you, you can always do the hiring yourself. If you decide to go that route, check out OnlineJobs.ph. The site has the largest database of virtual workers from the Philippines, one of the world’s top outsourcing hotspots. You should find plenty of promising candidates in your search there.
Another option is to hire a company to do the recruiting for you. These companies already have a structured hiring process in place, and they’ll handle all the vetting. So all you have to do is to interview the top candidates. They also have a talent pipeline full of quality candidates and passive job seekers who are usually employed but may be open to a new opportunity. That’s why it won’t take them much time to find someone who fits the job description. These companies have a knack for finding talent, and they have a pipeline full of quality candidates. However, you’ll pay more when you use their services.
So that’s it for now. If you have any questions feel free to contact us.
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