How to Choose the Right Virtual Assistant for Your Business
Updated August 2026
Deciding you’d like some help is one thing.
Finding the right person to help you is another.
When you’re handing over parts of a business you’ve built yourself, it’s completely reasonable to want someone who gets it.
Someone you can trust.
Someone who understands how you like to work.
And, importantly, someone who makes life easier rather than creating another thing for you to manage.
So if you’re considering working with a virtual assistant, what should you actually be looking for?
Start with what you need help with
Before looking for someone, get reasonably clear about the problem you’re trying to solve.
You don’t need a perfectly organised list of tasks.
But it helps to know whether you mainly need:
regular admin taken off your hands
someone to keep client processes moving
help organising the way things work behind the scenes
support with websites, content or projects
someone who can spot where a process could be simpler
a mix of all of the above
This makes it much easier to have a useful first conversation.
It also helps you look beyond a long list of services and ask the more important question:
Can this person help with the way my business actually works?
Look for experience, but not necessarily in your exact industry
Relevant experience is useful.
But that doesn’t always mean someone needs to have worked with a business exactly like yours before.
What matters more is whether they understand the kind of work involved.
If you need client admin help, experience dealing with clients and handling information carefully matters.
If you want someone to keep projects moving, organisation and follow-through matter.
If you need help improving systems, they should be comfortable looking beyond the individual task and thinking about whether there might be a better way to do it.
The right experience should make you feel confident that you won’t need to explain every tiny detail forever.
Pay attention to how communication feels
This is still one of the biggest things to look for.
You’re probably going to communicate with the person regularly.
They may also speak to clients, suppliers or other people on behalf of your business.
So notice what the early conversations feel like.
Do they listen?
Do they ask useful questions?
Do they understand what you’re trying to achieve rather than only focusing on the individual task?
Does their communication style feel natural alongside yours?
You don’t need to work in exactly the same way.
But it should feel easy enough to communicate openly when something needs changing, clarifying or improving.
Look for someone who notices things
There’s a big difference between:
“Tell me exactly what to do next.”
and
“I noticed this still needs doing — shall I take care of it?”
When you first start working together, of course there will be instructions and questions.
Nobody walks into a new business already knowing how everything works.
Over time, though, good support should require less prompting.
The person supporting you starts to understand the rhythms of the business.
They remember what happens each month.
They notice when information is missing.
They flag something that doesn’t look right.
They start to see the next step.
That kind of initiative is often where support becomes genuinely valuable.
Think about continuity
For a small business, continuity matters.
You don’t want to keep explaining your preferences, processes and clients from scratch.
The more familiar someone becomes with your business, the more useful they can usually be.
They learn how you like things done.
They understand which clients need what.
They know where information lives.
They recognise when something is unusual.
That knowledge builds over time.
So it’s worth asking how ongoing support works and who will actually be doing the work.
Consider how comfortable you feel handing things over
Experience and skills are important.
Trust matters just as much.
If someone is going to have access to your inbox, client information, website or business systems, you need to feel comfortable with how they work.
Ask questions.
Find out how information is handled.
Talk about access and confidentiality.
Understand what happens if they’re unsure about something.
You should never feel awkward about wanting to know how your business information will be looked after.
Don't overlook working style
Sometimes someone can be excellent at what they do and still not be the right fit for you.
Perhaps you like quick, informal messages and they prefer everything documented in detail.
Maybe you want someone who will suggest improvements and they prefer to work from very specific instructions.
Neither approach is necessarily wrong.
But knowing how you both like to work can prevent frustration later.
A good first conversation should leave you with a sense of whether working together will feel comfortable.
Look at what other clients say
Testimonials can tell you more than a services list.
Look particularly for comments about things such as:
reliability
communication
initiative
attention to detail
understanding the business
making things easier
being trusted with clients
keeping work moving
Specific examples are much more useful than a general “great to work with”.
They help you understand what the experience of working with that person is actually like.
The right support should feel lighter, not harder
There will always be a settling-in period.
You’ll need to explain some things.
Questions will come up.
Processes may need tweaking.
But the direction of travel should be towards less for you to manage, not more.
Over time, you should be able to trust that work is being handled.
You shouldn’t need to remember every detail on someone else’s behalf.
And you shouldn’t feel as though delegating a task has simply created another task called “manage the person doing it”.
That’s perhaps the simplest test of all.
A few questions worth asking before you decide
You don’t need to turn an introductory call into an interview.
But these can be useful:
What kind of work do you most often help clients with?
How do you normally communicate with clients?
How do you handle something if you’re unsure what I’d want you to do?
Do you suggest improvements when you spot them?
How does ongoing support work?
Who will actually be working on my business?
How do you handle confidential information and account access?
The answers should give you a much clearer picture than simply asking whether someone knows how to use a particular piece of software.
Ultimately, you're looking for someone you can trust
The right virtual assistant doesn’t need to be exactly like you.
And they don’t need to know everything about your business on day one.
What matters is finding someone capable, reliable and curious enough to learn how you work.
Someone who communicates well.
Someone who follows things through.
Someone who knows when to ask and, increasingly, when they don’t need to.
Because the aim isn’t simply to find somebody who can complete a list of tasks.
It’s to find support that becomes a dependable part of how your business runs.
Looking for the right kind of support?
The Online PA provides ongoing virtual assistant support for client-focused UK businesses, including wellbeing centres, consultancies, training providers, HR firms, coaches and creative studios.
