How to Interview Virtual Staff

If you've never interviewed staff or never interviewed staff online, then it can be quite a scary thing to do. But actually it's not so hard. And if you come prepared, knowing what you're planning to do and what you're planning to get out of it can actually be quite good and quite rewarding as well, especially if you hire the right people to do the jobs for you.

So, some of the things that I'm going to tell you that I do. You don't have to do them all, but I have pretty good success with majority of the things that I do and run through a few of those things. So one of the number one important things is the job offer. Try and be as detailed as possible. Try and give as much detail as you can.

Explain about the, you know, you as a person and the company that the person would be working for as well as the job and what they're expected to do and so on. There is a lot of people out there who. Skip this stage and quite rightly, a lot of Filipinos can be very skeptical of a job offer because there's people out there who do scam Filipinos into working for on for a little while, not paying them and then going away.

So you want to avoid that. So you want to basically give a honest and good picture of what it is you're actually doing, about your company and the kind of things they can expect to be doing in the role. That will increase the amount of people who actually apply for the job? Now when they apply for the job, starting the interview process, never.

I'll just jump into something like Skype or whatever and do a video interview. That will be a total absolute fail. It doesn't work out. Stay away from it, maybe if you're, it an online presenters job, then fine ok, whatever. But generally speaking, that does not work. Filipinos, for the most part, are quite shy.

Not every one of them. I mean, I've got one who's got his own YouTube channel. You can, there's a link on the homepage of my YouTube channel and you can check him out. He's given advice to Filipinos. Yeah. Have a look at that. But what I would say is this right. Start off by emailing questions, get them to send you the resume, CV, whatever.

Filipinos use the word resume just like Americans. If you are from the UK, you would use CV, so your curriculum vitae. But yeah, I didn't say that word right. That's me. Speaking English, but yeah. Anyway, if you ask them for that, I'll give you a rough idea. Now a lot of them will just use online portals to show.

What the actually, you know, tell you what they can do. They treat that like their CV. So you have a generally a good idea about looking at that. Of what they've done. Some of them have portfolios, so for example, never hired a graphic designer who doesn't have a portfolio because if he's too lazy to put together a portfolio, then he's not going to be a good designer.

He's just going to be lazy. Just stay away from. All designers, just about have portfolio of their work. Now, some of them will have it stored on Google drive. Some of them will have on websites that they've designed, some of them will have on portfolio sites. It doesn't matter where they have it. As long as they have it.

That gives you a good indication of, is this the kind of designer who I want to hire, who's does the styles that I'm going to be asking for and requesting, I use that a lot for hiring people. For my company Bee All Design is a great way of seeing people's different art work and so on and getting a feel for what they can actually do beyond the standard graphic design elements that just about everyone can do.

It's the, you know, the things that you don't actually ask for. Like the illustration styles they do, and stuff like that. It's really quite fascinating seeing some of them out there so. Graphic designers has asked for portfolio. Same with anyone who's doing pretty much any role. It's a little bit harder with virtual assistants because you know, it's like, Oh yes, I can do the following, but they don't actually have any examples of the work because it's generally speaking, if they've worked for someone that's private and confidential to that client.

So they can actually give you things, but they can maybe tell you about the things that they've done. And that gives you an opportunity to ask questions about the work that the are doing. And. That's what you want to base your first lot of questions on. Ask them stuff about, you know, what are current or past jobs where you do want it.

Make sure the realize that if it's a full-time job that's a full time job working for you and not a case of full time job for you. Part time job for him, part time job for them and so on. Cause that can happen as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't actually have a problem with people having side hustles or extra.

Work outside of their main job, but just as long as they know that they dedicate, if it is a full time job, eight hours to you five days, a week fully dedicated and they are working towards that job. So just make that clear and make sure they understand, that is what you're expecting of them. Ask questions, keep emailing questions when they send you.

You know, obviously if someone. Sends you in stuff and you think, Oh, well they're not going to be any good. Just stop. There's just no point. I tend to, if someone has went to the effort of writing in and supplying a CV or resume and answered some questions, I will say to them and look I don't think your right.

For me, just know about, I'll keep your details on record. Sometimes I do. I mean, sometimes it is a case of, okay, that person's not a backend developer, but the probably make a good front end developer, so I'll get back to them at some point. Speak to them about that. You will have people who will try for roles that they.

Just can't do. But you can usually find that out, with good interview questions, just, you know, have they done this work before? Where have they done it before? How long have they been doing it? Those kinds of things. And use that as the basis to ask the follow up questions and make sure you ask follow up questions and get a feel for the people who are actually applying.

If they're willing to replay back to you and you've been replying to them a few times. Then you generally find that they are keen and interest in the job. If they just give up, then you know, they weren't really serious and they weren't really that interested. Anybody who is serious will reply to a reasonable amount of questions.

Now, generally speaking, I can go through about 10 to 20 questions and on my website Outsourcing Boss at some stage in the future, not just now, but. Maybe later on if people are watching this video weeks, or months from now I will put together some of the questions that I asked to give you a guideline of the things that you can ask people.

Now, when you get the people narrowed down, I do like to have a Skype interview with them. Okay? But I let them know in advance that this is going to be something that I would like to do and let them know. It's not going to be a scary process. It's just that get to see you and hear you and get given them a chance.

Seen here, you as well. So I will say to them that you will need a web cam for it now. Not, everybody has a web cam. Most people have a mobile phone and mobile phone does have the ability to video. So they are able to do Skype, for example, may not be the best quality but its good enough to actually do a small interview. Do state to them though that you understand that if their young, for example, they may live in a household that has a family, has got young kids and you know, like, yes, they'll probably show them or get them to.

Everyone to be quiet while they're doing the interview. But you know, there's occasional times where, I mean, I've had interviews where people, there's all kinds of craziness going on in the background that's not necessarily in their house. That may be from the neighbors. They may even have chickens, witch you know, something enough came across its quite funny. That's not a normal, usual thing for people in the UK, Spain,  America, so on. Unless you have a farm, of course, then maybe you do. But yeah. So. Expect strange things like that. Now I've had some interviews where people, let's just say that their house wasn't fully decorated, you know, like fully painted, etc.

It's just been sort of breeze blocks style house, you know, not the best looking in the world, but I'm not hiring someone based on what their house looks like. I'm hiring someone based on what their like as a person  and can they do the job for me? I don't give a crap. What their current situation in life is, that will improve.

Especially if they end up, getting the job and they're earning money, things will improve for them, and they will end up with a better life, you know? So I'm not judging people based on their living conditions. I'm basing it on are they going to do the job for me? Now it is a good opportunity to ask them some stuff like, you know, questions that they wont.

Really be expecting, but like what does it do for fun? What the situation is at home, you know, do they live with their parents, do they live on their own, do they have friends, do their friends do similar jobs. Do they know anybody who works online? If they worked online previously before, all kinds of questions that are really good ones, talk and chat and.

Get some information, now I always ask them if they've got any questions that he wants to ask me and the majority of the time, the answer to that is going to be no because they haven't thought about it. Now higher skilled, higher paid jobs. Those people tend to do ask questions. You know, you will get people who are older who will ask questions.

People have been around a bit longer, you know, I have had interviews where people have told them in emails before about my company's in the, actually have looked up the website and read a bit about a company and it's been quite impressive for them to ask questions. In fact. One of those people got a job with me and has been great, but it's not a normal thing for questions to be asked.

But when they are asked to is quite good, and generally speaking, it's usually around subjects of what it is they're going to be doing. They tend not to talk about pay, but generally speaking, I've already said and stated that up front and during the interview I will reiterate to them its a full time job and it's for this amount of money, they will get paid directly into the Filipino bank account.

Now, the reason I pay directly into Filipino bank accounts is, believe it or not, their is Indian work centers, call centers, whatever, who will try and get work, pretending to be Filipinos. You know? And I know the difference between someone from India and somebody from the Philippines, but a lot of people don't.

You know, it's just. It's one of those things is like, you know, if you've never been around the culture and never experienced people from the different cultures, then you're not really going to know, but one thing I do know is that only Filipinos can have Filipino bank accounts, Indians cant so if they insist, that the only possible way that you can get paid is PayPal, then they're probably not Filipino because PayPal is not one of the best ways to get paid anyway.

And if you've got a bank account, they will wanted directly in. Because they get the full amount of money. They don't get any special charges because of the way I use TransferWise. There'll be a video I've done before that you can check out to see information on the best way to pay people from the Philippines.

So that's just something to watch out for. Now, one of the things I would highly recommend you do like, so for example, I've hired video editors two of them in the past and what I've done as during the interview process for them, I've said to them, look. You've said great stuff, you've shown me, you know, really good things in portfolios.

I need to know if you can edit a video that's going to be good for me in the style that I want. So what I do is I give them some footage. So for example, like my son will have recorded a Roblox game that he's played on. He's got web cam footage, and we'll give them those elements to say. Okay. I want you all to edit a video.

Now generally speaking, we usually give them about a week on that because sometimes you'll have people who they have to eat, they have to, you know, do jobs and work for a living to get some money in. But ideally they want to be a video editor, so they have to do that job during the day. So in the evenings they'll edit the demo video, that you want.

To find out if they're going to be any good, if they're going to be the video editor you want. So what I'll say to them is, or set a low amount of money, it wouldn't be huge. Generally, we'll either pay that through PayPal or straight to the bank account if they've got one. But I don't mean paying for the demo and work through PayPal.

And that gives me an opportunity to evaluate how they're actually good at taking instructions from me. So it will be written instructions along with the actual video files. And then just seeing what they do, you know all that. Oh, it has to be like, this has to be like that. I'll just say, well, here's the ones we've done in the past.

This is a style, we like how can you improve that? How can you make that better? What could you actually do? And also tell them what the realistic deadline is for a video so a video to be edited and to all the stuff. Done to it. I generally look for them to do about 16 hours turn around and so its two days.

You know, that's generally speaking. Sometimes it can be, if it's short videos, this isn't going to be a short one, but a short video in a day in eight hours. It should be fairly capable from doing so as long as they understand what the job's going to entail afterwards and. Give them that week to actually do it.

Do the first one to give you an idea, I found that way is absolutely awesome because it allows you to, weed out who is not so good and who has really good and who can follow instructions and so on. Yes, you have to pay maybe four or five, six different people who you've shortlisted or have to pay them all a small amount of money.

But believe me, you will save yourself a fortune because you're not going to be working with someone for weeks and months and think, Oh my God, they're crap. I'm going to have to get rid of them. Start this whole process again. It's worth the money. I've done it with backend developers as well, and front end developers too.

I've done it with graphic designers. It's great you know I actually. Love the idea of paying five different people, one week's wage, to get them to do something for me to see what it's like and then select the best person. Now, when I hired backend developers, I ended up with two instead of one because they were both really good.

I thought hang on a minute, I could really do a lot more stuff. Faster. It's not what I was planning, but you know, I can see in my head how I could actually get this done and get more work done and eventually get them to work together as well. So that way I've got backups or one can go on holiday and the other one can look after the systems.

So those, you know, or if I need to call someone in an emergency. Then great. So that's why I ended up doing that. But honestly, if you can do that kind of interview, and if you can do that kind of trial, a paid trial don't do trials where they don't get paid at all. If it's maybe like 15/30 minutes worth of work than fine.

Okay? You don't have to pay them. That's the only way that you can know if they can do the job. So maybe set them a tasks or say it's a VA and you've got our simple tasks. Say here you go, I want you to do this. I want to see how you can do it, how you actually do it. And then fine. But if it's quite a complicated task or it's quite a lot of work that's going to be involved, or if you're asking them to do several for a designer, for example, it could be asked them to do up to five or six different designs to prove that they can do it, then yes, pay them, you know, at the end of the day, I may not necessarily use the work.

In fact, the majority of the time have not even used the stuff that they've done. But, it was just to find out the skill level they are at, and I've asked certain things, specific things to get done that I think will show me if they're capable of doing what work I actually do have planned in my head for them to do.

So, yeah, paid trails, definitely the way to go, works great. Avoid Skype interviews at the beginning. If you don't want to do them, that's fine as well, but I just like to introduce myself and also find out what they're like, get a wee introduction to them. Now Filipinos are really, really shy and some of the staff that I've got are because of other staff members and I've not necessarily had Skype interview with them because.

When someone vouches for a friend or a relative that can do the job, then they effectively saying, I'm putting my reputation on the line here for this person, that's how good they are. And generally speaking, that turned out to be fantastic. You know, so you might not always have to go through a big lengthy interview process and may just be a case of questions through email.

That's enough. And away they go, so yeah, spend some time on it. The interview is key. To getting people that are good, and if you can do a paid trail, that's even better because you'll find that in the long run or work out better and you'll feel much happier with the staff member that you get at the end of it as opposed to you'll do or you're the cheapest or whatever.

That's just not the way to do that. You know? It's like, talk to them back and forth, get your questions answered, make sure they can do the job. And you'll be sorted, anyway. If you like this video, give it a like. If you've not subscribed to the channel, already, subscribe to the channel turn on the notification bell, and if you're a business person who's watching this program, please share it with your other business friends who may be interested in outsourcing.

That's how this channel is going to grow. I'm not expecting you to be a huge channel, but you know, it would be good if I had a couple of thousand people watching instead of 25 as I do. Just know. Okay, thanks. Anyway, speak to you later. Bye.