Virtual Assistant Jobs Offer Remote Flexibility, Little Experience Required

Do you hate the idea of going back to work in the office? If so, you might want to consider working remotely as a virtual assistant.

Virtual assistants help companies with general administrative tasks like data entry, responding to emails, managing someone’s calendar and meetings, and preparing reports. Virtual assistants also help with marketing, bookkeeping, customer service, sales, and project management.

As a virtual assistant, you can work with just one company or with several companies as a freelancer. Also, you shouldn’t have a problem finding work. Virtual assistants are in high demand right now, and the market is expected to grow by over 28 percent by 2028, according to Grand View Research.

You can find remote virtual assistant jobs on most employment websites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and Monster. There are also sites like Upwork and Fiverr you can use to look for clients if you want to freelance your services for a number of clients.

Virtual assistants can wear many hats, so before you set out looking for a virtual assistant job, you should assess your skills and see what role might fit best with your experience. Besides general admin work, virtual assistants help companies with the following tasks:

Accounting – This can involve billing, invoicing, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and general bookkeeping for a business.

Marketing – This can include managing a company’s website and social media channels as well as handling its email marketing and blog content.

Customer service – Some companies use virtual assistants to help respond to customer calls and online inquiries and do customer research to better understand who their customers are and how to reach new customers.

Project management – Businesses enlist virtual assistants to manage projects to help meet deadlines and stay on task and within budget. This entails communicating with team members and creating progress reports.

Sales – Companies may use virtual assistants to cold-call potential customers to gauge their interest in a product or service. Virtual assistants may do the selling themselves or just be the first point of contact, giving the information on interested leads to the sales team for follow-up.

According to Indeed.com, the top skills businesses are looking for in a virtual assistant are:

• Reliability

• Communication

• Time-management

• Resourcefulness

• Self-motivation

• Organization

• Detail-oriented

• Creativity

• Basic accounting

According to ZipRecruiter, the national average pay for virtual assistants in the U.S. is $21 per hour. Salaries can differ depending on location and what the virtual assistant job entails. About 58 percent of virtual assistants earn between $14.42 and $23.56 per hour.

Since virtual assistants work remotely, they can work for businesses worldwide. They can also work from anywhere in the world, which makes the job attractive for digital nomads who want to take their work on the road.

You don’t need a lot of experience to become a virtual assistant, but it helps, especially when it comes to how much you’ll earn. If you already have experience in things like accounting or social media marketing, those skills are easily transferable into the virtual assistant world.

If you are starting your virtual assistant career with minimal skills, there are courses you can take to increase your marketability. Sites like Udemy and Skillshare offer classes, and YouTube has a whole host of professional virtual assistants providing advice for those who want to get into the business.