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My wife Jamie and I go over the ins and outs of hiring the right Filipino virtual assistant for your business. Jamie shares her proven strategies for vetting candidates thoroughly to increase the odds of a long-term, successful hire. We also discuss common pitfalls in the hiring process and how to set up a system that weeds out less suitable candidates.
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Speaker 1:
How can you find the right person? If you’re hiring somebody that works way overseas in the Philippines? How do you make sure they’re going to treat your business right? How do you know if you can trust them? In all the number of questions that I’ve been asked over the years, this episode, jamie being here, we’re going to talk about how to not hire a dud for your business and Jamie is uniquely equipped to speak to that because she does these hiring projects for folks where she hires a Filipino VA and she has this really good vetting system to just increase your percentages, your chances of hiring somebody that’s going to work out long-term, because that’s what the listener wants right.
Speaker 2:
Right Cool.
Speaker 1:
So let’s jump into it. Oh, before we do that, though, if you don’t know, jamie, she’s my wife, hi, hello, and she’s the co-host of the podcast, and she’s been managing Facebook. At how long has it been? You’ve been managing Facebook and Instagram at five months or so. Mm-hmm. Behind the scenes, getting some good results for some direct clients of hers and what else.
Speaker 2:
You’ve also been doing a great job of raising our kids. They’re still alive and breathing.
Speaker 1:
One of them’s here right now. Today he’s not feeling so well. He came home from school and his teacher tells me he’s agri pada, which, because we live in Mexico and that means he has a cold.
Speaker 1:
He’s agripada, which, because we live in Mexico and that means he has a cold, mm-hmm, yeah, a little cold, not feeling so well, so he’s at home today he cried when he had to go to sleep on time and he couldn’t watch a movie with me last night, but I got to watch a movie with our daughter, which was also fun.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so, jamie, what are some things that you do to make sure you’re hiring the best person possible for a client?
Speaker 2:
So step one I post a post the job description right on the job announcement on the online jobs peach website and there’s a list of just steps of how to apply for the job. So there’s a job description and then how to apply for the job, and in those for us personally, like usually, we ask them to not send a resume. And then something that is really a great way to just weed people out from the very beginning is we put like a secret kind of secret task a secret task part way down.
Speaker 2:
That says that make sure you include this in the subject line and you can make that whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 1:
And so then, if they’re thorough, they see it.
Speaker 2:
If they pay attention to the details and the subject line changes right, Right.
Speaker 1:
Out of a hundred applicants or a hundred emails that you would need to look to because this is a common concern or slash complaint, like I tried to hire someone and I got flooded with applications, so out of a hundred. How many people does this like? How many folks who don’t pay attention to detail this weed out?
Speaker 2:
At least half. At least half, I would say at least half of the people do not pay attention to detail, to put that little secret task in the subject line. So this is a way that you can just boom, boom, boom. You know so many of them are. I’m your next rockstar, VA or something like that, and it’s like actually you’re not because he didn’t follow directions.
Speaker 1:
Right. So basically, if the listener just does this one thing, they’ve increased their chances of finding somebody trustworthy attention to detail, cases in detail by 50%.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, immediately.
Speaker 1:
That’s, that’s huge Jamie.
Speaker 2:
Because then you can just easily boom, boom, boom, go through and make sure that this person has at least done step number one, and then from there you can see how they filled out the next step.
Speaker 1:
What kind of stuff do you actually put in the job description, and is yours really long or is it really short? What’s going on there?
Speaker 2:
It depends what it is. Is it really short? What’s going on there? It depends what it is. If you want something you know, fairly simple, and you’re only hiring for, say, 10 hours a week, it’s probably going to be shorter. If you are hiring someone more for a full-time position, then your job description is going to be longer, right? If it’s a simple, you know, customer service, for example, it’s probably going to be a little bit more simple and some things you know you’re going to be explaining to them, training them, as you know, as they get hired, and so you don’t need to put tons and tons of detail. But yeah, it depends what kind of position you are hiring for.
Speaker 1:
If it’s more data analyst or something like that, then let’s talk about expectations like what can the listener let’s say the listener is hiring for like a general va. Like what can the what should the listener expect a good candidate to already know, versus what the listener should be prepared to teach the new hire during onboarding.
Speaker 2:
One of the things that I include is the tech stack of the you know of the business that we’re working with, and so ask them to rate themselves on a scale of one to 10. How well do you know my tech stack? And you know, most of the time they’re pretty honest, right, and he’ll say, hey, this is a 10, or actually, this one is a zero. But what I love is that most of them put even the ones that I am not familiar with.
Speaker 2:
I’m really happy to learn it and I can learn quickly and I’ve used maybe a similar one. If you’re in Asana or Monday, you know mondaycom or something like that, they’re going to be pretty similar if they’ve already done one but they haven’t done your specific one, it’s pretty transferable skills, right and so having a good idea. If they’re rating themselves like zero and everything, obviously they’re probably not a good fit, but if they have, most of them have some knowledge of. You know, obviously, like all the Google suite and you know things like that.
Speaker 1:
So. So, all things considered, all other things considered equal. How are you choosing between two potential hires who know approximately like the same amount of your tech stack?
Speaker 2:
Good question. So one thing I’m definitely paying attention to is their written communication. So one thing I’m definitely paying attention to is their written communication. Just how are they communicating in their responses? Are they using complete sentences? Do they have a good handle on the English language, on grammar, things like that? Are they, you know, polite and courteous? Do they sound a little bit short? Things like that. That definitely catches my attention.
Speaker 2:
The other thing that really catches my attention as well is the spacing and is how they even respond to the email. If it’s like a big blurb and it’s all one, you know, one long, super long paragraph, that just drives me insane. Like I want things, you know, bullet pointed, numbered. I want it nice and clear. This is the answer to this question. This is the answer to this question. This is the answer to the next question. Some people, you know, weed themselves out if we ask for, you know, go to the Instagram and find out how many people, how many followers they have, for example, as a question, and they don’t even have the right number of followers and it’s like you know, something like that. That should be just a really simple step that maybe they didn’t follow. So the spacing and just is it easy on the eyes to read and their written communication are also two major factors.
Speaker 1:
Mm, hmm, I like how this thing that Jamie does when you’re hiring somebody to make sure they’re a right fit, and you do this a lot later in the hiring process. But I like how you give them a trial, and so I’ve heard people ask like do you give somebody a free trial or a paid trial? I’m curious, what about you?
Speaker 2:
Right. So they go through another process of a bunch of questions that we send them. So once they make it past that round and I feel like they’ve answered all of those questions sufficiently well, we do offer a paid trial. I think it’s important to, I guess, to value their work and say we’re going to pay a little bit less because it’s a trial, but we still want to pay you for your time. You’ve made it this far into the process because out of 100 applicants, you were the one who actually responded. Then you responded to the next set of questions and now you’re here at this paid trial. You’re really the cream of the crop here at this point, right, if you’ve responded and gotten this far.
Speaker 2:
So a paid trial, I think, is really important because really it’s only you know the. The trial should, or the tasks that you give them should, only take two or so hours of their time. But if someone is still spending two, maybe three hours of their time to do the research, to research more on your company, your style, your voice, whatever they’re, whatever they’re doing, I think it’s still like that’s a lot of time to then possibly not make the cut and get hired, right. And so, even if you’re not getting paid that much, but it’s still showing. Hey, I appreciate you. I appreciate you making it this far and paying attention to detail and just valuing people’s time.
Speaker 1:
Over the years, when I’ve done a paid trial, I liked offering the same paid trial, the same exact paid trial, to a handful of applicants so that I could learn the following I make sure that the paid trial is a task that I know how to do. I don’t like to have a trial for something I don’t know how to do Right, because I want to know how long it will take somebody.
Speaker 1:
Because, if I tell somebody I’m gonna pay it, pay them and five people complete the trial task. Sure that may have cost me if I was paying somebody $5 an hour, just for an example, and each person took five hours. You know, five times five is 25, times five is $125, right, but what that helps me do is arrive at the candidate who’s most qualified my business.
Speaker 1:
Was it worth it Absolutely, because then I can see oh well, one candidate did it, or like three candidates did it in two hours. Okay, why did one candidate take like eight hours?
Speaker 2:
Do it.
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm, all right, they’re probably not the best one to go to Plus. Then I also get to kind of, because one worries that you’re hiring somebody who you’ve never met before. So do they work out of integrity If I know how long the task takes? But I tell somebody I’m going to pay them $5 an hour. Are they kind of milking me? Are they just going to work for 15 hours to do this task?
Speaker 1:
Do a stellar job or are they gonna do 15 hours and do a crap job, like these sort of things? And then what you said like I love looking at how different folks submit their paid trial. Are they giving me their PayPal in the email? Can I tell if they’ve thought of everything? Or do I have to go back and say, hey, I said, give me your payment information so I could pay you? Can you go ahead and send that in another email? Like these are indicators, like if you’re having to do that during a paid trial, you might be having to also do that, like when you’ve hired somebody and you don’t want that. And so by setting up this detailed hiring process, all these steps, that’s how you’re able to get to a good candidate for your client. So I think that’s pretty cool.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that actually just happened with a project I’m working on. Right now is most of the candidates that I offered the paid trial to did it in two hours give or take, and one took six hours and it was clearly something that should not have taken six hours. Although she did a good job and she answered everything thoroughly and even added in more SOPs and things like that, it was still like this should not have taken six hours. Of course, you know, faithful to my word, she gets paid for that. If that’s what she told me the time it took her, I’m gonna pay her right, but then you kind of see, like, okay, you’re probably not the best fit for the business, so yeah, I think one final tip that the listener might want is to answer this question of like.
Speaker 1:
How do you know what role to hire for Like, especially if this is the first hire Like? First of all, if you’re hiring your first person, congratulations. Like, your business needs you to hire your first person so that your business can grow, because there’s like gifts and talents and skills that only you can deliver inside of your business. And so as soon as you hire out those other things that you’re not so good at, that take your time, that are repetitive, then your business will be able to go forward, which means more revenue for your business. You’re serving more people, right, your family benefits, because you’re bringing the kind of revenue you want, and you also don’t have to work 24-7 to achieve that to achieve that.
Speaker 1:
And so in the previous episode we’re not done yet, but in the previous episode we had talked about signs that it could- be a good time for you to hire somebody so your business can grow faster.
Speaker 1:
And in there we sort of touch about like different roles that you could hire for. But let’s talk about this right now. This is how do you know what role to hire out first for and this is a question I’ve gotten. And how you know is first you need to look at what roles you are best at and that you want to keep doing. And then, second, of the roles that you could hire out for, or let’s call it responsibilities that you could hire out for you want to develop systems around those.
Speaker 1:
it responsibilities that you could hire out for you want to develop systems around those, as in. This is how it’s done and this is why it matters to the business, and so on and so forth. Right, just simple ways to measure progress or to measure quality of these responsibilities, and then you have to look for similar ones. Usually, one role is that of a general VA, like I can share from my business. A general VA would be in my business, somebody who’s collecting data, who is also editing video, potentially, or, inside of Canva, making graphics, and they kind of keep documents in order. They do general tasks.
Speaker 2:
Scheduling.
Speaker 1:
Scheduling oh, scheduling is a big one Somebody’s emailing you asking to meet and you’re looking on your own calendar and then going back and forth with them for like three emails. No, a VA should be doing that. Right? You could have a VA organize your email inbox. Filter out the ones. What are you hiring for?
Speaker 2:
again Customer service.
Speaker 1:
Customer service.
Speaker 2:
Right Email email inbox management.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Right, this, this VA could a general VA could be. Maybe it’s like a customer support VA, right? So they’re handling all the inbox stuff. They’re handling all the questions that you get from your students in your course because usually those questions are related. So, like step one, faq time, make an FAQ, put that somewhere that all your students can get. But then these other questions where they’re asking something that a certain lesson covers, you can have a VA respond to those. Also, community management you know this could be somebody, a social media VA, somebody who and folks would be like can I hire a VA who has English as a second language and have them take care of my social media? And the answer is yes you can Like.
Speaker 1:
They might not do it 100% as well as you would, but you can, and especially now with AI.
Speaker 1:
You know, using Clod, for example, is a great tool. We use ChatGPT in our business but you can train AI to sound like you in your voice and the AI already knows like best practices for like posting on Instagram. So if you ask it, it’ll tell you and then if you train it on your voice right and then if you give it topics and you can have it reformat things and you can. There’s a process to working with AI and you can teach your VA that process and then they can produce, through like iteration, good posts based off of content that you’ve done. You could dictate an audio. There’s a whole myriad of ways, but absolutely you can have a VA take care of your social media and even some of your interaction, depending on what you’re comfortable with, because it’s all a process that you can train and if there’s a process, then you can have somebody follow it and you can look for the outcome. I think we’ll leave it there. I think we’ll leave it there for now.
Speaker 1:
But the most important thing that you can take away from this episode is that it’s probably time to hire somebody and when you do get around to hiring somebody so your business can grow faster and better, might I add, with used to having, like, a quality lifestyle and achieving some of those goals that you really wanted to achieve with your business. If you just come back to this episode and take some of these tips, your chances for finding a better quality hire who’s going to stick with your business longer, right, and just be a blessing to your business and to you to work with. Follow these tips like, and you’ll increase your chances greatly. And we’ve done it. You know, like she’s hired a handful of people. I’ve hired I don’t know 17 people over the past four-ish years, or I guess I should say since 2018.
Speaker 2:
Maybe more.
Speaker 1:
So that’s the advice for you. If you need hiring help and just want a professional who’s good and has lots of experience to hire a VA for you, then get in touch with Jamie. That link is in the description below. Yep, thanks for listening to this episode and until the next time we see you, or you see us or hear from us be blessed.
Speaker 2:
Take care, see you in the next one Bye.
