Trouble Hiring VA's ... any suggestions?

I have a few from eLance. They worked well for my purposes, just make sure they are indeed qualified and can write in English legit-enough for your purposes. Philipino's are really good at writing generally, however they SUCK for anything over the phone.

Good post i am also looking for new staff would love to hear some more places if anyone knows anywere.

Create one post an put it on multiple freelance sites. Then look over the candidates and get some samples of their work.
Regards

Hey Pokerdawg.

You can look at elance and check for experienced people there. They have escrow and inbuilt workroom project management which usually helps prevent fraud because people have to take care of their reputation and their ratings.

You can also check onlinejobs.ph

There you can browse resumes and email people you think would be suitable for task at hand. It is however a paid membership site but of course you can cancel your membership after the first month.

As a general rule of thumb, do not generalize people on the basis of you past experiences, I've hired people as full time or as a one off basis from India, Pakistan, U.S, Nigeria, Belgium, NZ and Philippines and have had mixed experiences.

Specially with most outsourcing done in India/Pak and Philippines people have generalized judgmental opinions. So don't fall for that, you might not get the type of person you want the first time around, but thats ok.

All the Best with your hiring.

Maddi

Go here: craigslist: manila classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

Hi pokerdawg,

Odesk, Elance and Guru are all freelance sites. The staffs that registered on that sites are all freelancers who are working from home. They do not have employers and most of the times they can't be contacted for various reasons. Moreover, you're not sure if they are 100% working for your project since you can't monitor them. Employing freelancers gives you the benefit of the doubt, meaning you cannot be sure if their qualifications are truthful and if they are truly capable of the tasks you want them to accomplish.

I suggest to hire an outsourcing firm/company because leased staff are permanent workers of a company and are easy to reach in case you need them.

Craigslist, oDesk, eLance, Fiverr, Project4hire, Peopleperhour and etc. I really do think you do have to price with the quality you seek. Good luck!

Hi,

I have just recently used odesk and onlinejobs.ph successfully.

I had someone start this week which I hired from onlinejobs.ph and she has been nothing but amazing.

I have put her on fulltime as a VA, and have been training her up through video on how to post her articles onto my blog, post to ezine articles, forum posting etc...

My last person I hired which was through odesk was amazing too. The only reason I switched to onlinejobs was that I wanted someone fulltime and she was unable to commit to that amount of work.

If you have any questions, I would be happy to help

Thanks for the suggestions. I've used eLance 50 times already, but mostly for freelance article writers. Before I hired on oDesk, I had looked at another board that had lots of VA's for $2-$4/hour. I can see it in my mind but can't find it again. Maybe they redesigned their site and I'm looking at it but not recognizing it.

The problem with oDesk was that we had a programmer working on a $5K system that never got done. Yes, we got screenshots of our stuff on screen, but later found out the work wasn't being done and nothing was being delivered. The programmer was likely stalling or had no idea what he was doing.

The problem is that what the programmer did was fraud. If you have fraud, then the limitation of liability provisions in the contract go out the window. oDesk refused to make good (because they'd lose their share of the $) simply saying it is hourly work.

Hourly work where you're not happy with the result is one thing. Hourly work where you have been defrauded into thinking work is being done that is not being done is something else.

We're currently in dispute with Amex, hoping they resolve. If not, then the next move is to take Amex to arbitration. Having that law degree on the wall does come in handy sometimes....

... and no, I didn't pick it up last weekend from So-You-Want-To-Be-A-Lawyer-In-15-Minutes.com

... lol, with this group here, I should register that name and offer a 15 minute be-a-lawyer course

... and if I mentioned the Phillipines above, I'm not exclusively looking there. I'd also look at India / Paki / ... to find the right people for link building, article submission, link wheel creation / general SEO

THanks

While I haven't hired anyone from Odesk I have had problems with people hired through Elance and in one case there was some type of breach of "security" on Elance's site that resulted in a sensitive file between myself and the service provider that was put out by the "thief" on the Internet. Just be cautious with what you share there.

If you are looking to save money on VA's then you will def want to go overseas. If you are looking in the US, I'd highly suggest Twitter as a resource as there are many Virtual Assistants on there. (I personally have a huge Twitter list of all the VAs I've chatted with on Twitter, so feel free to look at that)

Most US based VA's will charge between $35-$40/hr depending on the task.

Here are my suggestions where you can post job posting:

Find a real, online job! | Home
Hire Filipinos - Find Online Workers in the Philippines | EasyOutsource

Have a look at bestjobs.ph

Thanks. I'll check all of those resources.

The VA's I need are for link building, etc. $35 to US is just out of range for this type of activity. That said, I do hire US when I can on coding, creative writing, etc. But for link building, which is a $2 task in some parts of the world (and a decent wage), it is affordable. Link building at $35-40/hour just doesn't work...

Thanks

A good site for getting VA's from the Philippines is Find a real, online job! | Home

We have hired designers, writers and programmers from this site and haven't had any problems.