How to Hire Your Dream VA (and Avoid Past Mistakes!)
Ever hired a Virtual Assistant, only to find the experience more stressful than helpful? You’re not alone.
Maybe your last attempt left you burned, with more work on your plate and a lingering frustration that the whole process was just too painful.
But here’s the good news — I’m going to help you get it right this time in this episode. I’m sharing my tried-and-true methods to ensure that your next VA hire is the one that sticks.
We’re chatting through this good stuff in the episode…
Why Past Virtual Assistant Relationships Fail: Find out what the common hiring missteps are that maybe caused your past VA hires to go south and how to avoid them this time around.
The 3 Key Steps to Success:
Interview Smart: How to set up your VA interviews close together for easier, more effective comparisons.
The Verbal Test: Why you should always include a problem-solving scenario in your interviews—and how to do it right.
Get Specific: The importance of asking detailed questions about systems, experience, and working styles to ensure the best fit.
Learn how to get it right and trust your gut. Hiring is about finding the right person for you, and sometimes your instincts are the best guide.
Background on Mel: If you’re new here, hey I’m Mel a Virtual Assistant expert on a mission to help business owners find their ideal virtual assistant. With years of experience in matching CEOs with their long-term VAs, I have seen it all and knows what it takes to create a successful partnership.
Why You Should Listen: If you’re dreading the process of hiring a VA again, this episode is for you. My practical advice will not only guide you through the process but also give you the confidence to make a decision that will truly support your business.
Links Mentioned:
Episode 51: Find out what kind of VA you need before you start your search. I break down the different types of VAs—from creative to tech, lifestyle, and business—so you can determine exactly what kind of support you need.
Subscribe & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. And if you found it helpful, leave us a review—it helps others find the show!
How to Work with us
Ready to find your perfect VA match? Let’s dive in!
Click here to download our Lifestyle & Business VA Services Guide
If you'd like to jump on a 20 minute discovery call and find out more in person, click here to answer a couple of short questions and book a call
Join my weekly email series Delegate Like a CEO, by clicking here:
THE weekly email series for folks looking to understand how Virtual Assistant, Lifestyle Assistants and Business Assistants can fit into their business and life and make them more productive, happy and organised.
-
Welcome to Delegate Like a CEO, I’m your host Mel Maw, a Virtual Assistant turned VA agency owner and podcast host. I've gone from charging just £15 an hour with nightmare clients to turning over multiple six figures in the past 5 years by building an agency roster full of ambitious CEOs, change makers, and impact-driven clients. I get to match these phenomenal business owners with the cream of the crop of experienced, trustworthy, and excellently trained VAs from my team and network.
I'm extremely proud that I get to do what I love, and it changes people’s lives for the better. I love helping overwhelmed and busy CEOs get more time, joy, and productivity back.
On this podcast, you can expect to find out everything you need to know about Virtual Assistants, from what they can do for you to how they can make you way more productive and why Virtual Assistants are just magic. Let’s dive into today’s episode.
Perhaps you’ve hired a VA before, but for some reason, it didn’t work. You put all the effort in to get help, but maybe it only added to your workload and stress instead of decreasing it. You wanted them to come on board and make life easier, but instead, it felt painful, slow, and actually caused delays and mistakes, so you cut ties and took back all your tasks. But now you need help again and you’re dreading the process. So, what are you going to do, and how can you be sure to get it right this time? Because you’re playing for keeps this time—VA-wise, I mean!
In case we haven’t met yet, I’m Mel, and I’m on a mission to change the VA and CEO dynamic for the better, so more business owners can find their perfect match VA, and more VAs can find the kind of clients they can flourish with. The match matters, and over the years, I’ve helped my clients find their long-term VAs in a short space of time, so I know plenty about what makes a magic partnership work.
If you’re wanting to hire a VA again and are scratching your head thinking, “Where on earth do I start now?” I know that dipping your toe back in the VA pond after you’ve been burned before doesn’t feel like it’s going to be a fun experience. Maybe it didn’t go so well before, but you need it to this time. If so, then in this short episode, I’ll be sharing exactly how to find, interview, and hire your dream VA successfully.
I’d recommend popping back and listening to Episode 51 (which I’ll link in the show notes below) to help you figure out what kind of VA you need, where I break down the many different kinds—from creative to tech, through to Lifestyle and Business.
Let’s start with the first of three tips I have to make interviewing and hiring your perfect VA a breeze.
So now you know what kind of VA you’re looking for. Let’s say you’ve gone off and found a few that you want to chat with, and you’re getting ready to book interviews or discovery calls with them. I do recommend speaking to two VAs that you like the sound of as a minimum, whether you’ve stumbled across their websites or they’ve been recommended.
Set up separate video calls as close together as possible for side-by-side comparison. The struggle comes when you interviewed someone last week, and the next one 5 days later—you’ll struggle to remember them side by side—trust me, I’ve seen it. In my VA Agency, once I’ve chatted with the client and know the kind of VA and support they need, I always make sure to find two close-together spaces in their diary, and I’ll wait if I have to for those slots. I’ve had clients do the two interviews a week apart, only for them to not have a strong recollection of the first VA, and then ask me who I think they should choose.
Here’s the thing: I have an inkling about who is going to be a good fit for them, but like I say to my clients—the VAs might be equal in their experience and ability, but they won’t be the same in personality, and that’s such an important part of the fit. Only you know what kind of personality you respond to, and you need to trust your gut as it will be you working with them virtually side by side every single day.
Do you respond better to warm, supportive ‘mama bear’ energy? Or do you need someone who’s showing a bit more confidence, who’s capable of building a rapport with you, and who isn’t afraid to crack the whip a little when you need chasing? Abilities and tasks can be learned or Googled; a personality cannot be changed. You’ll know who you gel with. My other best piece of advice? Record the interview, so if in doubt, you can watch it back.
Give every VA you’re interviewing a scenario or a problem to solve. Keep it the same for every interview; then it becomes a baseline litmus test question. What do I mean? Well, if you’ve had a problem that you felt your past VA didn’t do well with, or didn’t solve to your satisfaction, why not ask the next VA you’re interviewing what she would do in that situation?
I pretty much interview VAs for my team and clients for a living, so I have the same infamous ‘problem scenario question’ that I ask every single person I interview. It’s a little far-fetched, and if I tell you what it is, I’ll shoot myself in the foot if there are VAs listening who I end up interviewing one day, so instead here are some examples of things you can ask:
Questions for a Business VA:
Q: I need help planning and organizing a team-building day and overnight stay. Walk me through how you’d support me to organize this so that it needs the possible time spent organizing it from me.
Q: My schedule is a mess. Where would you start helping me create a more streamlined schedule with time for head-down deep-dive time, which I’m lacking right now?
Questions for a Lifestyle/Private VA:
Q: It’s my mother’s 60th birthday, and I want to surprise her with a big beautiful weekend away with myself and some of her closest friends. Where do you start?
Q: I need help putting my house on the market and finding our next home to buy. Where would you start in helping me with this?
Don’t be afraid to ask the VA what systems they use. Or, if you’re keen on using specific tech, CRM, or other systems in your business, ask if they have knowledge or experience with them. Don’t worry too much if they don’t, because VAs are the most resourceful and adaptable service providers around. VAs tend to have so much experience with many different clients across different industries and systems—they’re quick to learn, very tech-savvy usually. It’s your chance to ask them specific things too. Don’t be afraid to ask whatever you need to so you can have all the information to make the right choice for you and your life or business.
Get to know them, ask about their background, their hobbies—this person may become your right hand. It’s the start of a relationship, so find out whatever you need to know. If you’re hiring directly, not via a boutique agency like myself, ask how the onboarding process works, the task turnaround time, are there any days of the week or specific times they don’t work, what the notice period is—ask key questions on their terms and ways of working.
So there you go, to recap my best advice on successfully interviewing VAs so you can find the right fit:
1. Set up your interviews close together and record them for the best and easiest comparison.
2. Give them a verbal test or scenario so you can see their problem-solving skills in real-time.
3. Be specific, ask those burning questions so you have all the info you need to make an informed decision.
And bonus tip—trust your gut. Hiring can be daunting, but I also know it’s an important decision, and you need to do the right thing for you, and your gut will be a great indicator of who the best fit will be for you.
I’d love to hear if these tips helped you when it comes to thinking about hiring your first or next VA. And if you’re looking for someone to take up the search and match for you, saving you hours so you can simply be presented with two stellar VAs to meet and choose from, then let’s have a chat. My incredible team of skilled, trained, and confidential VAs have capacity for new clients in September, so now’s the best time to book that call. I’ll leave the link to our service guide and to book a call in the show notes below.
Thanks for tuning in. If you’d like to hear more about the wonderful ways Virtual Assistants change lives for ambitious business owners and CEOs, and how you can benefit from having one in your life, simply join my email list by the link in the show notes.
