10 Virtual Assistant interview questions and answers

Because there are many different kinds of virtual assistants, it’s important for you to have a clear idea of what you’re looking for. Do you need someone to organize your schedule, book travel, and arrange meetings? Or are you looking for someone to help with bookkeeping and data entry?

Because virtual assistants may be based anywhere in the world, it’s important to make sure you’re able to communicate. If you're based in New York and your virtual assistant is in India, for instance, they may be almost 10 hours ahead of you. What matters is that you clearly establish their availability and your needs so that you can tell whether it's a good match.

This question should give you insight into the candidate’s work style. Generally speaking, it’s better to ask questions than make mistakes, but good candidates should also be independent and proactive enough that they try to solve many problems without coming to you first.

This question is about making sure your work styles are aligned. Are you tied to your email all day? Or do you prefer to text while on the go? Do you like talking face-to-face over Skype or Google Hangouts? The ideal candidate will be comfortable communicating with you through the channels you use most naturally.

Whether or not you consider your company to be “corporate,” this question should give you insight into a candidate’s maturity, professionalism, and communication skills. Great candidates will have organizational experience, as well as a high level of comfort with different work and communication styles. For this reason, candidates with a few years of office experience tend to make more effective assistants than people right out of school.

Hiring a virtual assistant should help you become more effective and efficient. To accomplish that, they need to be able to prioritize tasks based on your particular needs and goals. A good candidate should be able to identify which messages are time-sensitive and which can wait.

A good virtual assistant should be able to pick up on your needs and be perceptive enough to identify the source of a problem. This comes from understanding both you and your business. Asking questions to better understand the problems you’re facing is a good sign.

Sometimes things go wrong. When this happens, you need a virtual assistant who’s resourceful and dedicated. Good answers might include switching to a phone or tablet while they get their computer up and running, as well as checking to make sure that their work has been backed up online.

Depending on your business needs, you may rely on a virtual assistant to coordinate with other team members. However, some virtual assistants consider working with other team members to be outside the scope of their assignment. Make sure your expectations are clear. Again, having diverse past work experience is generally an asset.

This question is pretty open ended and good answers will vary depending on your business needs and the candidate’s specialties. Great examples include identifying and streamlining inefficient processes to cut down on meetings, or identifying more cost-effective vendors for particular goods or services. The best candidates won’t just solve problems when you assign them; they’ll be constantly looking for ways to streamline and improve your workflow to help you save time and money if possible.