The Best Place to Hire a Virtual Assistant That Goes Beyond Task Support

If you are a C-suite executive, founder, or entrepreneur who spends several hours daily responding to emails or organizing your calendar, it’s time to get an assistant. 

Hiring a VA can significantly reduce your daily workload, allowing you to focus on your strategic tasks.

But what are some dependable sources of VA services?

This guide outlines the best places to hire a virtual assistant, including when to use VA services and when to switch to EA support.

TL;DR – Best Place to Hire a Virtual Assistant

Can’t read the whole article right away? Here’s a quick overview of the best places to source virtual assistants:

1. Specialized agencies
2. Job posting websites
3. Staffing firms
4. Industry VA associations
5. Referrals from friends and colleagues
6. Freelance marketplaces

Keep reading to understand what each recruitment source offers, so you can hire the right VA to support your executive needs. 

What Determines The ‘Best’ Virtual Assistant Hiring Platform

There are possibly 100+ VA hiring platforms on the market today. So, how do you choose the best platform to hire from for a seamless VA support experience? 

Here are the common traits shared by the top-rated platforms:

• Vetting Processes: Reputable VA hiring platforms have rigorous screening processes that account for candidates’ experience, skills, references, and cultural fit.
• Location and Time Zone: The best platforms match VAs to clients based on time zone alignment to ensure you receive timely support during your business hours. Additionally, location alignment ensures cultural fluency and reduces language barriers that could undermine the partnership with your assistant.
• Client-to-Assistant Ratio: Premium VA hiring platforms limit the number of principals an assistant can partner with simultaneously, such as a 1:5 ratio, ensuring you receive high-level support. 
• Platform Features: The best platforms offer centralized client dashboards for VA onboarding, backup communication channels, and performance management tools.
• Specialization: Top-rated VA hiring platforms offer specific types of virtual assistants for clients who need niche support. For example, if you are a web design agency, look for platforms that have VAs with industry knowledge of web development. This reduces the training/onboarding time and ensures VAs can provide accurate, personalized support, improving your customer ratings.

Best Places to Hire a Virtual Assistant

The best way to hire the ideal virtual assistant and onboard them quickly is to know where to look. 

Here are the best sources of highly-skilled VAs:

1. Specialized Platforms

ProAssisting is the #1 specialized agency for hiring and onboarding premium, US-based EAs to manage your business and personal support needs.  

Our platform streamlines hiring and onboarding a VA in the following ways:  

• Access to Seasoned EAs: Our ProAssistants have 5+ years of experience supporting C-suite executives at reputable brands such as Oracle, Target, and Walmart.
• Scalable Support: You can utilize ⅓, ½, or ⅔ of a ProAssistant’s capacity based on your executive support needs.
• Seamless Onboarding: We prepare our ProAssistants to hit the ground running by integrating quickly into their executive’s workflows.
• Responsiveness: You can expect timely responses within an hour during U.S. business hours. Additionally, our EA services provide after-hours support for urgent requests.

With ProAssisting, you get to hire a remote executive assistant who supports your performance multipliers, helping you achieve more while working fewer hours.

 2. Job Posting Website

You can publish VA vacancies on job boards like Indeed, Glassdoor, and ZipRecruiter, specifying the position’s duties and responsibilities, required skills, and experience.

Some platforms provide employer dashboards, allowing you to manage applications directly on the sites.

3. Staffing Firms

You can also engage recruitment agencies to help you hire and onboard VAs, especially when seeking assistants with specific skills such as database management.

While the method can be effective, it often comes with the cost of paying the recruiter a percentage of the hired VA’s salary for a specified period, such as 12 months.

4. Industry VA Associations

These are professional networks that provide VA training and certification.

As an executive, you can contact these associations directly and request that they recommend certified VAs who meet your requirements.

The only drawback is that the available VAs are almost always new graduates with little to no experience supporting C-suite executives.

5. From Friends and Colleagues

A commonly overlooked source of VAs is referrals from friends, colleagues, and business associates.

The primary advantage of referrals is that the VAs will likely have supported your business associates and fellow CEOs with similar executive needs, so they often come pre-vetted.

6. Freelance Marketplaces

These are online platforms, such as Upwork, Fiverr, and OnlineJobs.ph, where you can connect directly with remote VAs and discuss potential partnerships.

They provide massive talent pools and allow you to review VA portfolios and hire your preferred candidates.

When a Virtual Assistant Is Enough – and When It Is Not

As an executive, understanding when to use a VA or upgrade to an EA is the first step to receiving high-quality assistance that matches your support needs. 

However, this requires an honest assessment of your workload and the ideal work-life balance to determine which model works best for you.

When a Virtual Assistant is Enough

Hire a virtual assistant if:

• Your Administrative Tasks are Straightforward: VAs excel in repeatable tasks with minimal ambiguity, where they don’t impact strategic outcomes. Suitable tasks include data entry, email correspondence, and social media management.
• You Have Time to Review Each Task: Get a VA if you don’t mind explaining what you need for each task and reviewing the output personally to ensure it meets your expectations.
• You’re Only Looking for Project-Based Support: VAs offer flexibility if you only need assistance with defined projects, such as filing invoices, rather than developing an ongoing partnership with them.
• You’re Testing the Value of Assistant Support: Executives who’ve never worked with an executive assistant may favor hiring a VA to determine whether delegation works for them.

When Virtual Assistants Fall Short

The following situations warrant upgrading to an executive assistant:

• Your Tasks Need Strategic Thinking: VAs primarily excel in straightforward tasks that don’t require them to exercise strategic judgment and prioritize tasks based on business importance. For this, you need an EA who will develop a deep understanding of your business, allowing them to function as your extension.
• You Desire a Long-Term Partnership: Most VAs support six to 10 clients simultaneously and have high turnover, limiting their ability to build deep institutional knowledge over time. You’ll be better off onboarding an executive assistant to learn your preferences and expectations, creating compounding value through the years.
• The Role Involves Stakeholder Management: VAs often lack the skills to engage essential stakeholders like vendors and other board executives, limiting their ability to represent you during meetings. Exceptional EAs have high emotional intelligence and are adept at context switching, which helps them serve as your extension when engaging with stakeholders such as clients and vendors.
• You Need Integrated Support: VAs often operate within a narrow scope and focus mainly on administrative tasks. As such, executives who need support that cuts across their professional and personal lives should opt for EAs.

The Shift From Freelance Help to Structured Support

While you could start with freelance help, you will eventually realize you’ve outgrown VA models. It is normal to assume that the only alternative to freelance VAs is hiring an in-office administrative assistant. 

However, this may be expensive and may not fit with the type of support you need.  

Ethan and Stephanie Bull, in their book, The 29-Hour Work Day, emphasize that structured support isn’t just about finding a more skilled EA, but about reimagining what executive support can accomplish when built around the five performance multipliers.

Here’s how these multipliers align with the shift to structured EA support:

• From Helper to Business Partner: An executive assistant gains a deeper understanding of your business, enabling them to function as strategic partners who can make independent decisions based on the context.
• From Fragmented Coordination to Chief of Staff: An exceptional EA functions as your primary point of contact, streamlining your communication. They review all meeting requests and either approve or deny access to the executive (you), based on whether your input is required.
• From Handling One-Off Tasks to Project Management: Unlike VAs, who handle specific tasks like booking flights based on your instructions, EAs can oversee projects from start to finish without supervision. This includes creating timelines, managing budgets, and coordinating teams to undertake the tasks.
• From Basic Scheduling to Calendar Mastery: Every VA can schedule meetings on a calendar. However, effective executive support requires an assistant to be a master scheduler who can reorganize your calendar based on shifting priorities or developing events like cancelled or high-value, urgent meetings.
• From Administrative-Only to Integrated Life Management: Most VAs have rigid scope boundaries with a primary focus on administrative tasks. Unfortunately, this leaves you with a hectic personal life that affects your work schedule. An exceptional EA will support you across both business and personal dimensions, enabling you to reclaim as much time as possible.

Why Executives Choose ProAssisting Over VA Platforms

Modern executives no longer need the traditional virtual assistants who add meetings to their calendars and manage emails as their primary roles. They want an executive assistant with whom they can brainstorm issues and exchange ideas.

Additionally, executives want an assistant with strong emotional intelligence, whom they can entrust to handle their stakeholders.

Ethan and Stephanie Bull founded ProAssisting to fill this EA gap. At the ProAssisting Academy, we train our EAs to provide integrated support to help you reclaim your time and experience improved work-life balance.

Our ProAssistants offer:

• Administrative Support: They handle tasks, such as email management, scheduling, and planning travel logistics.
• Daily Task Handling: They follow an executive assistant daily checklist to ensure even basic tasks don’t fall through the cracks.
• Specialized Services: The EAs can handle other specific tasks, such as research and intelligence gathering, personal brand development, and custom travel planning.

Schedule a personalized call to explore available executive support options.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

This section answers common questions executives ask about the best place to hire virtual assistants:

When Should a CEO Upgrade From a Virtual Assistant?

A CEO should upgrade from a virtual assistant if they need support beyond just administrative tasks. 

In this case, you should hire an executive assistant to handle both your business and personal schedules, so you can reclaim your time.

What Tasks Can I Realistically Delegate to a Virtual Assistant?

Realistically, you can delegate mainly administrative tasks to a virtual assistant. Examples include:

• Data entry
• Email management
• Scheduling
• Document preparation

How Quickly Can I Hire a Virtual Assistant Online?

Some VA marketplaces let you hire an assistant at the click of a button. 

Unfortunately, such hires mean you haven’t assessed the VA’s skills and capacity to support you effectively, which can often result in frustration.

Conclusion

If you are an executive who is used to handling everything yourself, hiring a virtual assistant is a significant first step towards reducing your workload and reclaiming your time. You could delegate administrative tasks, such as email and calendar management, so you can focus on your core responsibilities.

However, if you have experience partnering with a VA and feel you need high-quality support, it’s time to switch to an executive assistant.

Our ProAssistants have at least five years of experience supporting C-suites at global brands, such as Rochester Regional Health, Victoria’s Secret, and Sony Pictures. Additionally, our remote executive assistants can handle upto 95% of the tasks handled by in-office assistants, at 50%-80% less the wages.

Book a one-on-one call today to explore possible EA support options.