Hiring a quality virtual assistant (VA) will give your business incredible leverage. We all know the benefits of creating a reliable team who consistently meets business objectives.

In this 3-part series about virtual assistants, we’ll divide the process into distinct steps.

Usually investors focus only on part 1, which is hiring. They often forget the 30-90 day onboarding process and ongoing management of the VA. It's in the latter 2 parts where the investor feels lost and frustrated when business goes awry.

In this blog post, we’ll start with Part 1: How to Hire a Virtual Assistant.

What makes this recruitment methodology different is that in this system, unqualified candidates will disqualify themselves. That leaves you only the candidates with strong work ethic to interview. This system can also be used to screen candidates from Fivrr, referrals, agencies, and other sources.

Tools you’ll need:

1. $99 subscription to Onlinejobs.ph. (Click here to purchase.)
2. Free subscription to Calendly
3. A Zoom account
4. 30-60 minutes a day to implement

What you’re looking for are dependable candidates who are effective in lead generation and cost $4-$7 per hour. You're also looking for someone to work for 10-20 hours per week. Candidates ought to be trainable, have reliable Internet, and can regularly self report.

They should know how to cold call and send follow ups through various CRMs. They should understand and are willing to improve their screening of leads based on the 4 pillars (motivation, timeframe, price, and condition of the house).

Here's a step-by-step guide for a recruitment system. This systems has 4 elements: application, initial screening, tests, and cold calling screening.

• Step 1. Create a Calendly account for yourself. Designate times you are available to conduct 30-minute job interviews. Link Calendly to Zoom.

• Step 2: Go to Onlinejobs.ph and purchase the $99/month subscription. Create a professional job posting with summary, qualifications, requirements, and application process. Include similar verbiage and Calendly link in the application process:

Every candidate who wants to be considered for the role must complete the following 3 steps. Application will be disqualified if any step is missed.

• A) Must email a PDF version to the email you provide
• B) Must send a Vocaroo link, where they will record a 60-90 second message as to why they should be considered.
• C) Must schedule an interview on the Calendly link you provide.

Satisfactory submissions alludes to the candidate’s ability to follow directions. It also shows diligence and professionalism.

• Step 3: In Onlinejobs.ph, start searching for all candidates who 1) have real estate experience and 2) fit within your budget. Use the search function for keywords like "virtual assistant real estate" and "real estate cold caller." Use the Contact button to reach out to every person, saying their experience seems like a good fit. You are looking to hire. If they are interested, please apply here. Give them the link to the job posting. After your first send, the mailbox function in Onlinejobs.ph will save it as a template. That way, you can expedite your outreach quicker. Expect to send out ~30 email templates a day.

• Step 4. If the candidate does all 3 application steps, then you’ll already have a potentially good candidate scheduled in your calendar for an initial screening. Like traditional interviews, you ask the standard questions: “Tell me about yourself,” and “Tell me more about your past role.” Remember to ask for preferred work hours, if they have another part time job, what their career goals are, and what they like to do for fun. Ask them how what type of performance metrics their previous employer had, and what challenges and successes they had in their careers. Lastly, ask which CRMs and dialers they've already used. If you are looking for a VA who has social media marketing experience, be sure to ask for examples of work. Record the screening on Zoom.

If you like their initial screening, then explain that you will be emailing them a Word Doc or Google Doc. That document will have several tests. These tests are 5-8 different scenarios you wrote. In the space provided, you'll ask them to write an appropriate email or SMS follow up for that scenario. That document should be completed within 24 hours and turned in to you. (Failure to do so disqualifies them.) Meanwhile, they can go back to your Calendly, and schedule a second interview for their cold calling screening.

• Step 5. After receiving the completed tests, the candidate should have their interview scheduled on your calendar. This interview will be recorded on Zoom as well. Ideally, it should be conducted by someone other than you. That way, you can get a third party opinion about the candidate. Have the interviewer turn the camera off and pretend to be a homeowner. There will be 4 scenarios, each with progressively more challenging scenarios. At the end of the interview, thank the candidate, mention that their entire application will be reviewed by the team. Finally, say you’ll be in touch with your decision in a week.

In 5 steps, you have gathered tangible information on professionalism, reliability, and follow through. You also know their skill levels with communications and gaps in their learning. You can also see their personalities and commitment to your company.

Sending 30 email templates a day on Onlinejobs.ph will yield about 2-3 candidates for the first screening per week. Be ready for cancellations and no shows.

After all 5 steps, you’d probably locate 1 quality candidate every 2-3 weeks. Hiring that 1 high-quality, professional VA will take much weight off your shoulders. This methodology also leads to a low turn over rate, and is easy scalable as your business grows.

Going forward, the responsibility of onboarding, training, and management still relies on you. This too can be cumbersome and time consuming - and much harder than the above application process.

The VA will reach out to homeowners for you. However, the contact information of the homeowner needs to be accurate. Moreover, you need standard operating procedures in place to ensure your business functions correctly.

A high quality list will give you high quality leads so long as you know what you’re doing with your VA.

That’s why Perfect Skip offers free resources - We know how paralyzing overwhelm can be. You’ll need an expert who’s fluent in team management and marketing data to guide your business.

Download your FREE EBook "Marketing Simplified: How to Decrease Marketing Overwhelm" and reserve your FREE consultation by clicking the book cover below.

Click here for part 2: How to Onboard a VA

Click here for part 3: How to Manage a VA