We are people and “no man is an island”. We invest in relationships and people that we talk to on a daily basis. The same thing goes when hiring virtual assistants. You’ll be building relationships with your team as you’ll be working with them closely in the hopes of expanding and exploding your business. You build relationships with individuals and not syndicates. You might be building a relationship with the VA assigned to you by the syndicate but it won’t be the same as having a VA who’s 100% focused on your business and 100% giving you value for every dollar you give them. This will lead to a better relationship.
In our hiring process, we recommend that you conduct a Skype interview for this purpose: to see if you’re comfortable with communicating with them as you’ll be doing that extensively in the future if you choose to hire them. John Jonas shared his experience with hiring a syndicate as compared to hiring an individual applicant.
Also be aware of syndicates “acting” as individual applicants. This is where a thorough background check is needed as you’ll be able to see the number of job posts applicants have applied for and other indicators of fake accounts.