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Getting an interview with a client is a big step further towards becoming a successful virtual assistant. Now you have to deal with virtual assistant interview questions to start working as a professional VA. It may be a nerve-wracking experience waiting for your interview. If you want to use that time to prepare for your interview, here are 24 virtual assistant interview questions to help you.
General Virtual Assistant Interview Questions
First, here are general questions you are probably going to get asked. These are common questions for virtual assistant applicants.
How Long Have You Been A Virtual Assistant?
This one is pretty straightforward. Your client wants to find out about the time you’ve spent working as a virtual assistant. This gives them an idea of how much training you may need or how proficient they can expect you to be at the job. A straightforward answer is best at this point.
Can You Tell Me About Your Background Experience?
Your client wants to know more about your qualifications for being a virtual assistant. Tell them about your previous jobs. Describe the aspects which are aligned with being a virtual assistant for their business. You may also want to share which of them prompted you to become a virtual assistant. Experience in life and school can also be shared if related and supportive of your answer. This is especially important for applicants who feel like they do not have enough relevant experience.
What Are Your Methods to Keep Everything Organized?
Part of being a virtual assistant is organizing different kinds of business-related material. This is an important skill in any virtual assistant specialization. Share with your client how you practice organization at work and personally. Tell them how and why you value that practice. If you have used or are using apps to do this, feel free to share it with them, too. Your attention to detail can also be showcased by answering this question.
How Do You Successfully Fulfill Your Multiple Duties?
Virtual assistants should be adept at multitasking. Your client wants to know how you manage multiple tasks at the same time. Let them understand how you deal with multiple deadlines. Describe your thought process when it comes to prioritizing tasks. Let them also know how you deal with incoming requests when you already have much to work with. Allow this question to reveal your task management skills to your prospective client.
How Do You Make Sure My Information Is Secure?
This is a common concern for clients delving into remote management. As a virtual assistant, you may be tasked with handling sensitive information not limited to passwords and billing information. Remote monitoring tools can be cited in your response. Those are apps that allow them to see the work you do one way or another. You may also reference tools like Lastpass as another security measure.
Prospecting / ISA Interview Questions
Here are questions that may come up if you’re applying to be a prospecting virtual assistant or an Inside Sales Agent.
What Is The Time You’ve Been An ISA?
Your client wants to find out how long you’ve been an ISA. You may add here your overall working years and compare it to the time you’ve been working as a virtual assistant Inside Sales Agent. Tell them also how you feel about your current practice with the time you’ve spent doing it. This can help set their expectation regarding your commitment to the job and reliability as a stable hire.
How Many Appointments Do You Book In a Week?
Provide an honest answer. You may also note your highest and lowest points just to give an illustration of your range. This sets your client’s expectations on the output of one of your main tasks. The question also provides you with an opportunity to describe what kind of environment lets you flourish, and what negatively impacted your performance in the past.
How Do You Course Correct When Outbound Calling and Emailing Doesn’t Drive The Results You Want?
If you’re a seasoned ISA, this should be easy considering all your past training and experiences. Provide an example from your experience to further improve your credibility. If you don’t have an answer yet, this is your chance to do some research on prospecting strategies. Answer your prospective client based on your understanding, but also be honest about the lack of experience on your part.
What is Your Strategy For Nurturing Leads and Pushing Them Along The Sales Funnel?
This is another great question for seasoned ISAs. You get to showcase your expertise through this question. Remember to provide an example to further illustrate the span of your knowledge. For newcomers, do your research and think about which strategies can best work with your client’s target market.
Marketing Virtual Assistant Interview Questions
The next questions are commonly encountered by marketing virtual assistants during client interviews.
How Would You Promote a New Product?
Here’s a question that tests your general knowledge in the field of specialization you’re going into. Whatever marketing position you’re applying to, it’s helpful to any business that their staff understands how to market products. Especially if you’re going to be part of the marketing team. Make sure your knowledge of relevant marketing channels is current and relevant to your prospect’s business.
What Does Engagement Mean To You, In Social Media Management?
This is specifically for social media virtual assistants. Find out how content engagement drives change in a business and relay that to your client. Know what it means by heart and give an answer that provides value to your client and their customers.
What is your 30, 60, 90-day Plan for Entering a New Marketing Channel?
This is another question that contributes to showcasing your expertise as a marketing virtual assistant. Provide a sound answer to your client. This shows them your skill level as a professional marketer who knows how marketing job interviews go. If you’re new to this, still prepare for this question.
Experience and Expertise Questions
This section contains questions that require you to answer questions about your experience that reveal your expertise in whichever field of virtual assistant services you are in.
What Experience Do You Have When It Comes to The Position?
Your client now wants you to go into detail about your previous experience. Detail your previous delegation as much as you can. This gives them insight into your understanding of the job and the value every task provides to the business.
What Kinds of Tasks Have You Worked On In Your Specialization?
Answer this by briefly enumerating the core tasks you encounter on a daily basis. Then, discuss special tasks that you feel prepared you to take the next step in your career, or gives you an edge over other applicants.
What Skills Do You Possess That Will Help You Succeed In This Roles
Enumerate the skills and special talents you have. Include methods and coping strategies that you know help you be good at what you do. This is another chance for you to sell your uniqueness that sets you apart from other candidates.
What Applications or Tools Have You Used?
Here, highlight your favorite tools and recommend the best ones you know. Briefly enumerate other tools, too to let your client see how proficient you are at using different tools to help their business scale. Different businesses use different tools. Compare your best choices to popular options to help your client understand if they seem to be unfamiliar with your choices.
What’s Your Best Advice to be Successful in Your Specialization?
This is probably the best way to show that you learn from the time you spend as a virtual assistant. Answer with what you think is your secret to success. You may also choose to share your greatest learning from a mentor or a previous mistake. Sum up your experience so far, but be careful not to oversell yourself by recognizing that you still have room for growth in your client’s company.
Character and Qualities Questions
Up next are more in-depth questions the reveal your character and qualities to your client. Take some time to reflect on your answers before coming to your interview.
How Do You Handle Deadlines?
Your answer to this question reflects how you work. This is where you allow the client to know more about how it is to have you in the team. Provide an answer that illustrates how you manage multiple deadlines and how you pace yourself in those situations.
How do You Handle Being Flooded with Requests Near the End of Your Shift?
Answer this in a way that respects the business’s needs and your boundaries. There are people who put work first, and there are those who understand that work never stops and they’ve only got 24 hours in a day. Let your client know how this makes you feel, and why you feel your reaction is the best way for you to deal with it.
Can You Tell Me One Strength and One Weakness That You Have?
This is your chance to get vulnerable. You may choose to address a personal or professional weakness you’re currently working on and how you intend to address it. As for your strength, spend a lot of time thinking about your best bet, and then illustrate how you manifest it in your professional and personal life. This shows your client the level of awareness you can exercise at work, and how capable you are of dealing with hardships while continuously delivering what is expected of you.
Probing Questions
The following questions seek a deeper understanding of your overall professional character. It requires you to provide answers that put your personal and professional characteristics together. Your answers will tell your employer what kind of teammate they can expect of you.
How Have You Resolved The Situation With a Difficult Customer?
A lot of virtual assistant jobs can be client-facing and will have you encounter difficult customers from time to time. It’s important for your client to understand how you will deal with that over the phone. This makes conflict management a valuable skill for a lot of VAs. And the best way you can illustrate that is by narrating a past experience, or at least something related to providing resolutions in real-time.
How Do You Stay Motivated When Customers Are Giving You A Hard Time?
It’s important, especially for a remote contributor, to know how to stay motivated. It’s part of what you’re accountable for in a work-from-home setting. Let your client know how you do this and how you plan to continue that, given that you’ve chosen a career that will remain in a remote setting even as the pandemic restrictions ease up.
How Do You Motivate People To Stay on Track and Meet Their Deadlines?
If you’re applying for a leadership position like a Project Management Virtual Assistant, it’s important that you know how to motivate not just yourself but also your team. Provide an example of how you’ve done this in the workplace or a grouped situation. Then, describe how you’ve grown from that and how much further you can improve that previous experience.
How Do Your Services Help Grow My Business / Why Is It Important For My Business?
The most valuable part of interviews is your presentation of the value you bring to your client or employer’s business. All the virtual assistant interview questions revolve around finding out how much value you can bring to your client’s team. Before you go into the interview, reflect on your biggest strengths so you can properly position yourself as the best candidate for your client. Understand their business’s needs and match them with the skills and tools you are offering to your client.
Watch our mock interviews if you need more help in preparing for your client interview. Good luck!
If you are interested in becoming a virtual assistant, fill out this form and submit your resume. We offer paid training and operational support to our pool of virtual assistants. You’ll also receive advice from our coaches and get access to our client profile.
We are previously hiring for the Executive Virtual Assistant (EVA) and Inside Sales Associate (ISA) role. Previous virtual assistant experience is not required, but at least six months of call center experience is required.
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