Recently, a friend and fellow business owner posted a question in her private Facebook coaching group and requested short video answers as a response. She asked:
“What skills or qualities do you hire for?”
As I have had virtual assistant (VA) subcontractors on my team for a few years now, I shared my thoughts on this question. My answer was that I look for an equal measure of hard skills and soft skills.
The hard skills I require in a competent VA are based around solid administrative skills in: Microsoft Office applications (especially Word and Excel), Google Suite and a range of online tools and applications for email marketing (like Mailchimp), any CRM and team and project management programs (like Trello or Asana). These are an absolute must in our field of work.
What is equally important are someone’s soft skills.
While I expect a good foundation of the technical skills I just mentioned, those are easy to teach and learn and solutions can typically be found through a quick online “How-to” search. What is difficult to teach is someone’s general attitude, their work ethic, ability to be detail-oriented and precise, and being keen and able to find solutions without too much hand-holding.
While specific technical skills may vary between industries, our soft skills are relevant in any field of work. Forbes summarised the top 7 Transferable Skills that will help you in your job search as follows:
Technical
Communication
Critical Thinking
Multitasking
Teamwork
Creativity
Leadership
As you can see, only number one is based on hard skills (essential technical and technology skills) – the rest are focused around innate and some learnable skills. For example, communication includes verbal, listening, writing and technological skills (the latter to choose the right medium for your communication). Critical thinking skills mean problem-solving; assessing a given situation and finding the best solution or an alternative when Plan A does not work. As a VA, we often have to think on our feet, as it were.
So, problem-solving is essential for a VA, as is the next one: Multitasking. That dreaded word that took on a whole new level for many people during the imposed work from home situation in the current COVID19 pandemic! It is based on good time management and organisation, i.e. being organised, setting priorities and managing your time well.
Then there is teamwork, which asks that you commit to the team’s or your client’s success, not just yours. And creativity is the ability to develop ideas with strategic and tactical know-how. Personally, I prefer the word “resourcefulness” for this ability, as the word ‘creative’ suggests to me arts, crafts and hands-on designing.
There you have it. The next time you are looking for a job or freelancer contract, don’t forget to highlight your transferable ‘soft’ skills!