When you’re hiring your first Virtual Assistant, you might ask yourself:
Do I hire someone with experience, or without experience?
There are definitely pros and cons to both, and in this article, we’ll dive deep into who you’ll probably need for your business.
For clarity, a virtual assistant with no experience doesn’t necessarily mean someone with no prior job experience or fresh out of school. It could simply mean that they do not have any virtual assistant experience at all before they started working for you.
𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐯𝐬 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐀𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬
An advantage of hiring someone without experience is that they are starting off with a clean slate.
This means that they don’t have baggage or old systems from previous employers, and they’re eager to learn more about the tasks that they have before them.
Virtual Assistants with experience will have structures that they will bring with them from past jobs that they can use to help you build those structures right off the bat.
Those with experience will bring in what they’ve learned from the work they’ve done before and skip the usual mistakes.
Depending on where your business is at, both sides can be a pro or a con.
𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐨 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐯𝐬 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞
When you hire someone who doesn’t have experience, they will most likely have a thirst to prove themselves and what they can do for you.
This means you’ll have someone who looks forward to new tasks and wants to grow themselves further.
When you hire someone who does have experience, you’ll find someone who can go with the ebb and flow of a business, and be able to handle emergencies as they pop up smoothly as they’ve had experience being able to deal with problems before.
𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐋𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐎𝐟 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐯𝐬 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬
Working with someone with no experience means that they have fresh eyes when it comes to tackling tasks and projects in your business.
This means that they will have suggestions and new perspectives on how things can work better or faster in your business, or being able to add new things that you never thought about before.
When working with someone with experience, you have a person who knows how to filter ideas based on the work they’ve done before.
They’ll be able to bring up ideas but also prefilter themselves to present them in a more complete manner.
𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐁𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐎𝐟 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐯𝐬 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐮𝐭
One of the things we open up inside of 2xYou for possible assistants is that we’re open to those with no experience.
The reason for this is it gives an opportunity for someone who just wants to get started a chance to prove themselves and show up in the best way.
When hiring someone with experience though, it makes it easier to filter people out and find those who you really need in your business.
𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐨 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐯𝐬 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬
As you start documenting your business’ processes, having someone who has no experience is the perfect training ground.
The reason for this is because they don’t have prior ideas about the task, they’ll be able to learn the task from scratch, and test out your current systems to see if they work.
With someone with experience though, they already know how to build systems and they can act as your checksum who double-checks the work that’s already been done.
𝐍𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐀 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐯𝐬 𝗪𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐅𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲
When you’re still crafting what a position in your company would look like with its tasks and responsibilities, having someone with no experience makes it easier to test and experiment versus if you were working with someone with experience who has certain expectations on how things should be.
Overall, whether you should hire someone with or without experience goes down to who you need in your business, who can work well with you, and what you need.
In the end, our biggest advice is this:
𝐒𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬
Someone who has 10+ years of experience who can close deals left and right but treats everyone badly can be trumped by someone with 1-year experience but has leadership and communication skills to move a vision forward.
We’ve seen this happen time and time again, and in the end, if you’re trying to build something long-term, investing in someone who has good soft skills can help your business.
Comment below, what has your experience been when it comes to working with someone with or without experience?
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