How to Become a Virtual Assistant and Make Extra Money Online doing Virtual Assistant Jobs?
In my Top 12 most popular online jobs for college students, virtual assistant job stands on the last position, however it doesn’t mean that this job is least attractive. Actually, this type of job has grown very quickly to meet the demand of many online industries.
What is Virtual Assistant?
According to Wikipedia, Virtual Assistant “(typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office.”
Basically, virtual assistant plays the role as of traditional assistant who solves the official tasks or other tasks which are assigned by employers. The difference between virtual assistant and traditional assistant is the work place: VA can stay at his/her home to do the job; all they need is a computer and a reliable Internet connection.
Some industries that require VA:
- Administrative (secretarial, medical, legal, etc.)
- Computer – IT (Website development, online marketing, networks, etc.)
- Consumer Services (retail, food, etc.)
What tasks a VA (virtual assistant) does?
- Answer emails
- Make employer’s schedules under control
- Make/Answer the phone calls
- Manage the blogs (make comments, publish the posts, promote the blogs over the Internet)
- Manage social networks. Many employers don’t have time or don’t know how to interactive with customers/readers on social networks, so they need VA to do these tasks.
- Bookkeeping
- Graphic Design
- Do research / Brainstorm ideas
- Data Entry
- Typing
- Customer Service
- Team management
- Event planning
- Do other administrative tasks as employers’ requirements
As you can see, the VA tasks are very diversified, so before deciding to be a VA, you should sit down, take a pencil and white paper, and note all your knowledge, skills, abilities and strengths that you can provide as services to companies. For example, if you are confident with your English native voice, you can consider to become a VA who answers the phone from customers. Or if you have accounting skill, you can become an online bookkeeper.
Pros and Cons of Virtual Assistant Jobs
Pros
- Work as a VA can bring you quite high income compared to other online jobs for college students. You can earn $12 to $50 per hour (or even more), depending on the difficulty of tasks and how proficient you are.
- Moreover, the demands for virtual assistant are increasing quickly, so you will have higher chances to find your suitable position.
Cons
- As a VA, you have to master many skills: administrative experience; excellent organizational and time-management skills, etc.
- The time is usually fixed based on the requirements of employers. Therefore, college student guys need to arrange the time so that doing job doesn’t affect your study.
How to become a Virtual Assistant?
There are so many ways to find a virtual assistant job. Just add your creativity and passion on work, then you will be successful. Here I will list some ideas so you can start:
Browsing on virtual assistant job boards
These sites are dedicated for virtual assistant, so the requirements and competitiveness will be quite high. Some VA job boards to start:
- Virtual Assistant Forums
- VA Networking
Checking on other job board sites
Beside the dedicated sites for VA jobs, you can broaden your searching range to other job boards. These job boards will include so many type of online jobs, not only VA, but with some luck, you can still find a suitable position. The most famous online job boards you can check:
- Elance
- oDesk
- Guru
- Freelancer
If you prefer writing tasks..
.. you can visit the following sites:
- FreelanceWritingJobs
- MediaBistro
Utilize social networks to find online jobs
Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and especially LinkedIn can give you many job chances if you do properly. Join the business groups that relate to what VA tasks you want to work for.
Make Your Own Website and showcase your skills and work
A personal website will play the role of an online portfolio, which shows the world who you are, what skills you master and what things you can do. A professional personal blog will boost you a lot in finding a dream job. Building a website is not that hard, with some simple web development skill you can do it by your own. However, if you can’t do it, so outsource to others is also very simple nowadays.
Your Thought on Becoming a Virtual Assistant and doing Virtual Assistant
Do you like the idea of becoming a virtual assistant? What things I’ve missed ? If you have any questions/comments, please feel free to leave them in the form below.
Check below links for some other online jobs for teens, students and stay at home moms:
