Knowing what skills are required when hiring a virtual assistant is vital to make a suitable appointment.
The same can be said if you are a freelance virtual assistant and want to learn what skills future employers seek.
Like any profession, some skills are paramount to doing the role you are applying for or advertising. It is often too easy to opt for the candidate with the best qualifications without assessing their overall skills and future potential.
This article focuses on the most vital skills you need if you work as a virtual assistant or must insist on, if you are hiring a virtual assistant for your company.
What Are The Most Important VA Skills?
Here are the key skills to focus on.
Written And Verbal Communication
High on the list of vital virtual assistant skills is having an outstanding ability to communicate effectively by performing written and verbal communication tasks.
Regardless of which industry the business is in, a virtual assistant must be able to relay information in an easy-to-understand way.
For example, oral communication using software such as Slack, Skype, Messenger and Zoom are everyday skills a virtual assistant will need to perform to a high standard.
Written communication is also a vital part of the role of a virtual assistant. For example, having excellent writing skills when composing emails, working on marketing campaigns and handling administrative tasks that require the virtual assistant to create reports.
Both verbal and written communication are essential skills that must be performed impeccably daily when dealing with fellow staff and customers.
Word Processing
All virtual assistant jobs require excellent word processing skills and must be considered vital to all virtual assistant duties.
Word processing may seem basic, but if a virtual assistant can format text accurately and quickly, then it helps to save business time and money.
Written tasks must be processed daily, so performing these duties quickly by typing at high speed will benefit all concerned.
The main reason you hire a virtual assistant is to delegate tasks that are time-consuming so that you can prioritize tasks that generate money for the company. Any person providing virtual administrative support must have an excellent eye for detail and excellent organizational skills; this applies to all written content.
As well as being accurate, the written content must be within a designated timescale. Therefore the faster someone can type, the better.
For example, an excellent virtual assistant must be able to touch-type at over 50 words per minute and be accurate.
The less time you spend checking your virtual assistant’s work for accuracy, the more time you can dedicate to other areas of your business.
Data Entry
All businesses have to manage data entry properly, and this is where a good virtual assistant will prove invaluable. But data entry is a tedious administrative task that always needs to be done correctly; however time-consuming.
Virtual assistants will expect inputting data to be a big part of their role, and the data they deal with can be anything from updating customer details to sales tax records depending on their skill set.
Data management is vital in any business, so ensuring all data is correct and stored correctly is an essential part of the role, and a virtual assistant requires a high level of self-motivation.
Data entry remains one of the top virtual assistant skills needed to work in a modern business despite being boring.
General IT Skills
All virtual assistants must have general computer skills that go beyond being able to use essential software apps.
Having the necessary skills to perform administrative tasks that involve working on software such as Excel, Access, and Microsoft 365 and help with PowerPoint presentations is vital for all virtual assistants.
Performing general research for specific tasks related to lead generation is also one of the essential tasks a virtual or executive assistant must do.
Sometimes it will be a learning curve, but if a virtual assistant can learn additional IT skills such as website maintenance and offering tech support, it will save money in the long term.
When a business can hire one remote worker to deal with many aspects of IT, it is a cost-effective way of keeping everything running smoothly.
Education And Training
Working as a virtual assistant isn’t just about entering data, taking phone calls and scheduling meetings, even though these are essential skills.
Providing a training pathway for your virtual assistant to be able to learn new skills is beneficial for them and your business. The aim of hiring virtual assistants is to assign them certain tasks they can do with little supervision; the more skills they have, the higher the chances of achieving this aim.
For example, as a business owner, you must always look to hire people with excellent time management skills, but more specialised assistant skills can be taught through quality training.
Hiring someone keen to learn and with excellent general virtual assistant skills is always an advantage because their willingness to learn new skills will save your company money in the long term.
Real Estate Industry Knowledge
You must hire virtual assistants with extensive knowledge of the industry your business is in.
For example, if you own a real estate business, the person you hire must have knowledge and experience assisting real estate agencies. Skills such as updating and writing real estate listings and knowing the correct industry terminology are necessary.
Also, having the organisational and time management skills to manage the high volume of listings must always be accurate and engaging.
Writing listings for properties for sale or rent requires knowledge and skill, and you have to adapt quickly to new information regarding the property listing and update accordingly.
The person you hire must have all these skills and be able to perform general administrative tasks to a high standard.
Social Media Management
All businesses must have a highly visible social media presence to keep ahead of the competition; this is particularly important in the real estate industry.
Hiring a virtual assistant for social media management will save your company time and money as they will be assigned the time-consuming task of handling social media accounts.
Managing social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok takes considerable time and effort, and these social media platforms are excellent ways of engaging with your customers.
Hiring someone to manage social media accounts for you allows you to spend the hours you save on other high-level management tasks that only you, the business owner, can perform.
An excellent social media presence will help attract potential customers to your business, increasing your revenue and making the investment in virtual assistants worthwhile.
Email Inbox Management
All small business owners must stay on top of their email management tasks to ensure their company runs smoothly. And hiring a virtual assistant services worker for email management means always meeting deadlines on time and your inbox isn’t overloaded.
Your virtual assistant will be able to implement different strategies like prioritising your emails in terms of importance and filtering out junk emails.
Most virtual assistants will work in a different time zone from where your company is based; this is an advantage as they can deal with emails before you start your working day.
Your virtual assistant can answer questions via email and schedule meetings more effectively if they use the email filtering systems correctly.
Clients rely on a business to be run efficiently, and email management is vital to keeping your customers happy.
Let Us Hire A VA With The Right Skills
Hiring a virtual administrative assistant for your real estate business can be a minefield.
First, you have to advertise the post, then sift through the applicants, then interview, and that’s all before you hire and train the successful candidate.
The whole process can be long winded and fraught with pitfalls if not performed correctly, so many businesses prefer to take a hands-off approach to hiring.
Thankfully, we are on hand to help you. Our experienced team of experts will help you hire the perfect virtual assistant to work with your business.
Call us today for a free consultation to find out how our team can identify, interview, hire, train and manage your virtual assistant for you so that you can get on with running your business.
