If you have the right skills and the willingness to work hard, you can comfortably take home an attractive paycheck by working as a Virtual Assistant Work at Home Opportunities. Find out more whether you have the required skills for becoming a VA and how much you can earn as VA.

1. What are the essential and preferable skills?

• Besides possessing a PC or a laptop and high speed broadband connection, VAs must be fluent in English.
• VA should ideally have the skills and knowledge in office and general administration.
• VA must have hands-on experience in handling Microsoft-Office Suit (excel, word, outlook, power point and access).
• VA should be able to do online web research, data entry work and handle emails.
• VAs must have the willingness to work as per USA local timings.
• Chat through Skype, MSN, Yahoo or Google.
• Fluency in spoken English with USA and UK accents.
• Basic knowledge of software and programming and web designing.
• Database management.
• Creating mail-merge files.
• Link submissions.
• Image editing.

2. What type of jobs are required to be done?

• Data entry, office and general administration work
• Travel planning and handling financial information
• Development and management of mailing list
• Transcription of recorded interviews and minutes of the meetings from audio files
• Occasional or regular telecommunication through Skype or Internet enabled overseas calls
• Contacting clients and follow up with clients
• Collecting email addresses from websites and sending pre-written sales letters

3. What are the compensations?

• VAs are generally paid hourly compensation, which might range from minimum $5 per hour and up to even $10-20 per hour depending upon the type of work handled and the employer.
• Usually, VAs are expected to put in minimum 20 hours per week.
• On an average, an Indian VA can easily earn $500-1000 (Rs.20,000 to 40,000 at current exchange rates) per month per employer.

4. Where to find the opportunities for VA?

GetAFreelancer, and Elance are the best places to look out for hundreds of well-paying opportunities as Virtual Assistants.

If you are looking out for freelance opportunities, working as Virtual Assistant is one of the best alternatives for a great pay package. Out there are hundreds and thousands of small to medium firms, top executives of large companies and entrepreneurs that hire Virtual Assistants for their day-to-day work. Read further to know more about the world of Virtual Assistants (VA)

1. What is a Virtual Assistant?

• Virtual Assistant is a person hired by an individual or a company to provide assistance in numerous work and activities.
• VAs provide diverse categories of services ranging from administrative, technical and even designing and assistance for creative work.
• Virtual Assistants work as ‘VA to Individuals’ and ‘VA to Companies’.

2. Why the employers hire VAs?

• Saving time on unproductive administrative activities.
• Saving money on the salaries and long term and recurring operational costs and overhead expenses of temporary or permanent employees.
• Employers can devote more time for expanding their business and doing more creative and productive work.
• Hiring a VA is the most cost-effective way instead of hiring temps or permanent employees.
• Above all, VAs are independent contractors and hence the persons hiring VAs do not have to bother about employee insurance, sick leaves, vacations of employees and employment taxes, among other.

3. What are the advantages to VAs?

• VAs can work from cozy comforts of home and from anywhere even if they are traveling.
• VAs can simultaneously work for multiple employers.
• Overall, a VA ends up earning much better packages instead of working as a full-time employee with a company.

In Conclusion

As most of the employers and their clients are from USA, Indians and Asians wanting to work as VAs must remain available during normal USA business hours. Generally, the offers as VAs are allotted on short-term basis spanning from 3-6 months. However, sometimes the opportunities could also be available for pretty long durations, maybe from 12-months to 2-3 years. Read another article on this website to learn more about how much you can earn as VA.

Checkout for Virtual Assistants Jobs at freelancing sites like GetAFreelancer, ScriptLance and Elance.