Ready to hire a rockstar virtual assistant that will help you take your business to the next level?
This OnlineJobs.ph review will detail everything you need to know about hiring a virtual assistant through this booming website.
But is it a good place to hire talent?
The answer: Yes, but you have to know the in's and out's.
What is OnlineJobs PH?
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, you’re probably wondering - what in the world is online jobs.ph?
Online Jobs is a Philippines-based job board, spanning over 250,000 members nationwide. With the membership numbers ranking up in the six figure-range, it’s currently the largest and most popular job site in the country.
It was the brainchild of John Jonas, who founded it back in 2008.
Initially, John Jonas only intended it to be a side hustle. But it eventually exploded into something massive. Now, it is the go-to place for hundreds and thousands of employers globally who prefer to hire Filipino contractors for help with their projects.
Should You Hire a Filipino VA?
In addition to Filipinos being some of the least expensive VA’s around, they make incredible employees… for many different reasons.
Their culture encourages jobs for a lifetime, instead of the Western idea of working your way up the ladder until you become an entrepreneur on your own.
Filipino workers are as loyal as they come.
They work hard and have an eager desire to impress their bosses. This something that can be hard to find.
Do you want someone who shows up each work week, pays attention to your instructions, is dependable, is hard working, and is pretty much all-around employee-of-the-month material?
Then I highly recommend this site for hiring your virtual assistants.
When I need a quality assistant to do a specialized line of work this is my go-to site again and again.
What are the Skills You Can Find on Online Jobs?
Beyond just finding quality virtual assistants, what about people with experience in other areas?
Use OnlineJobs PH to hire:
- Graphic designers
- Content writers
- Social Media experts
- Marketing specialists
- Code developers for your site
- and much more
OnlineJobs PH can be an overwhelming source of skilled contractors for just about any task under the sun.
You can check the categories of skills featured, and you’ll find that there are several different fields... including programming and development, design and creative, marketing and sales, and administrative support.
But wait, there’s more to work with…
Those are just umbrella categories, and within these general categories are dozens of specialized skills you can review relevant to them.
It’s just not as easy as you think… Unless you have an efficient system laid out to help you cut to the chase and zero-in on your goal. Learning how to work efficiently with an assistant like this can take time.
- How exactly do you do it?
- You gotta get to know more about the platform first.
- What are the features?
- What purpose do those features serve?
And how do you navigate and find your way around this massive site filled with eager Filipino VA’s-to-be?
Employer and Contractor - What to Expect on the Platform
One of the cool things about OnlineJobs PH is the filtering feature.
They’ve got a throttle going, which means contractors can only give them a whopping 5 stars in just 3 categories and 4 stars in 6 categories.
What this means is that you can never shoot for a VA that’s rated 5 stars all the way. And this means one thing:
You need to prioritize your ultimate required skills with the 5 star ones.
So go straight for those skills you are immediately needing, check for VAs rated 5 stars, and don’t even settle for anything less. You should have really high standards. The higher the better because the more experince someone will have doing the exact work you want done.
If they have additional skills rated, 3, 4, etc that will be an asset to you, bonus!
You'll want to spend a lot of time really diving into this. A good virtual assistant will be easy to find if you just define what you're looking for. Think about the specific experience needed to help complete your ongoing projects.
Let’s take a sneak peek into how to successfully find and hire virtual assistants before you post a job.
ID Proof
Bet other platforms don’t really talk about doing a good proof check
It’s actually a pretty unique idea, and serves as a strong metric on this site for hiring VAs.
Employers and contractors shoot for the highest proof scores possible.
It’s the metric that helps boost their trust factor, because people looking at their profile can easily use it to determine if the individual is really the right one in the picture.
The lower the proof score, the more doubtful people are of your authenticity.
Seeing a strong ID proofing score is also evidence of a contractor’s honesty in representing himself or herself. You want a VA who’s honest and trustworthy, someone who can come alongside your journey to grow your business.
Rating System
Now let’s talk about rating…
It may seem like just a numbers game… But the higher the rating a contractor has, the more confident you should feel about it all when it comes time to find a good a virtual assistant.
This is also why peer-to-peer platforms like OnlineJobs PH consider the rating system a ‘hallmark’ of the platform.
What’s great about onlinejobs.ph is that there is a feedback system in place. While it’s not as prominent as what you can see in other platforms, the fact that you can see the ratings of potential candidates makes it a good tool.
It’s also worth noting that OnlineJobs PH is more focused on creating long-term client-contractor relationships between people rather than one time deals.
Find Your Next VA With These Tools
Here's are 4 tools to make use of when you dive into this site. The more experience you have with each tool the more likely you are to find reliable virtual assistants with tons of relevant experience.
1. Use the Filters to Create a Shortlist of Candidates
You can post a job and have a whole bunch of applicants send you resumes. I use this tactic too.
My preferred method for finding applicants first, though, is to filter down to a dozen or so and send them all an email invitation to apply.
I am going to take you through the steps on OnlineJobs PH as if you were hiring a video and audio editor.
Audio is a little less common, so I am going to put ‘podcast’ in the online resume jobs search box.
You can look for: SEO, content writer, graphics design, admin assistant, social media management, advertising, and many more skills.
You will quickly get back a ton of resumes that match your search criteria.
You don’t want to go through more than 25 or so resumes, so you refine the filters down further to find a short list of potential candidates to reach out to.
Select the skills that match your needs
Choose the skills you need. This, for example, is the graphics and multimedia section.
I narrowed the results down to only 10 to go through… perfect!
Clicking on the first one, I might be done already!
10+ years of audio/video experience, bachelor’s degree, id proof in the green, and a lower-than-expected monthly salary.
Dig around a little bit and check your candidate’s background
If you hit the ‘background check’ button, a bunch of data pops up.
This includes a Facebook profile, email, phone number, age, and things OnlineJobs PH shows you… like if they are sending emails for jobs, how many times they have modified the account, if other accounts are related, and more.
These are signs of agencies hiding as employees. Some people don’t mind agencies, but it is nice to know that you are talking to a single person instead of a company in the Philippines.
Do this a couple of times, and you will have a shortlist of applicants to move on to step two with.
2. Create your job posting and put it up
Once all that dirty work has been done, it’s time to create your posting - and begin it with YOUR name.
It’s a smart way to catch whether each virtual candidate actually did the work of reading the whole thing, or just skimmed and scanned and arbitrarily addressed you as “Dear Hiring Manager” or “Hi” when your name was right up near the top of the posting - big and bold.
If they message you saying they want to apply, but didn’t even address you with your name, don’t even entertain second thoughts about dropping them as applicants.
They already failed the first test, and have proven to have zero detail-orientedness. You won't even need to review things much further. Just count them out and move on.
This will save you tons of time and cut down the amount of emails you need to read. It's really a must do when navigating this site.
3. Let your candidates take the 16 Personalities Test
Personalities need to match.
So be sure your team’s personalities mesh perfectly with yours.
No clone is necessary, but find out their personality after having them take a test. Here’s a link to a free and comprehensive personality test I use to screen my candidates - https://www.16personalities.com/
In the end, only the meticulous and detail-oriented people are worth your time and money. A good virtual Assistant will have a personality that matches your values you hold dear in your own business. Don't settle.
4. Choose Your Preferred Plans and Pricing
There are certainly different price models for OnlineJobs PH.
Here’s the pricing structure and the inclusions for each:
You can sign up for free and get about 3 checks for this option.
If you’ve got a small budget, and all you want is to see if people respond to your job posting, then the free plan should work just fine for you.
But if you want to get more, you should sign up for the Pro Level at $69 per month. This allows you to request work immediately, contact your candidates directly, and review their applications.
Now, if you need a handful of contractors for your team, you may want to switch over to the Premium Membership.
For $99 a month, you can increase your job posting ninja-ness to 10 posts a month max.
With this membership:
- You even get access to a video training course,
- Background data check review
- And the exclusive worker coaching services.
What’s cool about the background check is that it protects you from fraud. You get to check the candidate’s data on the platform, and get to know straight-away if you’re likely to be dealing with a scammer or a legit, honest person.
As for the worker coaching service, this is an exclusive Online Jobs service that pairs your new VA with a mentor vetted by the platform to guide them on how to succeed with doing remote work on your projects.
But there an easier way to hire a virtual assistant with this site.
Done-For-You Contractor Recruiting Service
Onlinejobs PH also has a done-for-you kind of a recruiting service for a flat fee of $500.
The price is pretty steep, but it saves you from getting your hands dirty with the screening, background checks, and conducting a skills test to potential candidates.
Once they’ve shortlisted their top choices, you can begin the interview process and choose your VA from the bunch. If you’re eternally busy with other things and want to just hire a VA who fits your needs perfectly, it’s comforting to know you’ve got this option.
Basically in the time it would take to do a few social media posts you could be hiring someone with awesome experience to work for your company!
And one more thing...
There’s a one month guarantee on this recruiting service.
If for some reason your new hire underperforms or fails, you can get the best replacement at zero charge.
I recommend this option for anyone who hates the review process of hiring.
How Much of This Post Was Created By Filipino VAs?
It is kind of crazy how much of my life has intertwined with my Filipino VAs. They enhance our business every day.
We have been adding virtual assistant after virtual assistant over the years, and our whole operation is almost fully run by work coming from this site.
Here are the steps this article took to get to you and how many of them were done by Filipinos.
- Website was built by my Filipino Web/Graphics Guy
- Keyword and SEO analysis chosen by US SEO guy
- Keyword, topic and SEO info given to Filipino writer
- Outline and SEO Content written by a Filipino
- Content lightly edited by a US editor
- Royalty free images found by Filipino VA
- URL, tags, internal and external links, image SEO done by a Filipino VA
- Post layout done by a Filipino VA
- US SEO guy checks and sends post to be published
- Post created and published by a Filipino VA
I have never laid out all of the steps like that but almost all of the blogs on my site are done the same way.
I can’t speak highly enough of my employees in the Philippines that have become family over the years.
I highly encourage you to get your first rockstar VA sooner, rather than later, on onlinejobs.ph.
OnlineJobs.PH Review Conclusion
Finding a good virtual assistant to add to your team can be really tough. You have to be good at spotting the exact exact experience needed and take the time to go through all the applicant email. However, when you familiarize yourself with the tools given to us by OnlineJobs PH you'll have a much easier time.
I can't recommend this site for finding good quality talent who wants to work hard and really do their best. Each time I go through the whole experience of finding someone on this site I always come away with a good person.