What do you use them for? (E.g. Work, home - e.g. grocery/online shopping, organizing time)
How often do you rely on VAs?
What's the best one you'd recommend - i.e. trustworthiness, service?
Do you look for a private contractor or some outsourced companies?
I'm looking for one to do a mix of admin and home work and have no idea where to start. Any feedback would be great
Edit: Thanks Neil… totally had a mind blank there
I'm looking forward to the answers, I don't actually know what a virtual assistant is in this context…
Not exactly sure what one is either. But if it's doing someone's shopping online and arranging it to be delivered, signing forms or other simple tasks I'd be happy to do that sort of job.
I have no idea what a Virtual Assistant would even be used for, but it sounds a lot like paying someone to do things that I do anyway for free — and that goes against my OzBargainer's Pledge.
I used one ages ago from India as an experiment (an on-line company in the days before freelancer etc). Biggest issues were the effectiveness of communication and work quality (which sometimes included outright cheating/half-arsedness). Due to their low cost these VAs are cheap enough to experiment with on certain types of bulk tasks where a single, local VA would be overwhelmed.
Of course virtual assistants are now a thing in Australia but of course a lot more expensive (I've never personally tried these new services but I've worked in one-off tasks on Airtasker). One thing I've noticed with VAs and most workplaces is that you often have to choose between mindless sheep who can be very efficient at menial tasks and then deep-thinkers that can simplify your task but easily get bored at menial tasks.
You might tell someone to separate postcodes from a huge address list in Excel and they'll do it manually - needlessly charging you for a full day of work rather than a couple of minutes. A lot of older people do things the old-fashioned, expensive way and sometimes a VA shouldn't blindly follow their instructions. But if it's volume you need these people are invaluable.
A benefit of Airtasker for one-off tasks is that you may find lucrative gems. You can get experienced programmers or designers that are in between jobs and will you do your tasks professionally for basically nothing. The sad part is that you'll even find desperate people that would willingly work well below minimum wage equivalents. On the flip-side, task posters are frequently gullible, technologically inexperienced and need something done urgently, paying hundreds for tasks that may take 5 minutes.
Excel will do the post code this in seconds automatically!
Look up the flash fill feature.
I have used a virtual receptionist for 10+ years. It has been invaluable - but you need to find the right one.
Some of them do very little, some of them go above and beyond.
I had to sack one who couldn't even tell the client the URL to my website.
VA? Virgin Australia, Vampire Academy, vulnerability assessment?
EDIT: Maybe a virtual assistant?