Now that you’ve clearly defined the job description and decided which type of employment arrangement is best for you, you’ll need to find someone to hire.

This, in my opinion, is the most nerve-wracking thing about having an assistant. What if you hire the wrong person? What if they don’t follow your instructions, or can’t ever seem to meet deadlines? What if they aren’t honest?

It can be very scary to be hiring help for your blog, but you can alleviate some of those fears by being thorough in your hiring process. Here’s some things to think about as you get started actually hiring an assistant:

Who To Hire

You can either hire someone you know, or a complete stranger. Brilliant thought, I know! There are pros and cons to each: if you hire someone you know, you already at least somewhat know what you’re getting into. It’s nice to know their personality outside of an interview situation, and you may already be familiar with how they interact with others.

Then again, if it doesn’t work out, it can be awkward to fire someone you know, or to tell them they need to step up their game.

If you hire a complete stranger, you at least won’t have the awkwardness than can come from being the boss to a friend, but you are venturing a bit into the unknown as well.

If you’re hiring a virtual assistant service, I might ask for references from their clients. Don’t be afraid to email those clients and ask them about their experience with the virtual assistant!

Don’t forget to check places like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc., for information on your prospective assistant. I wouldn’t request that they be your friend on Facebook, but you can often see certain parts of their profile that might give you clues as to whether or not they are the type of person you’re looking for.

The Application Process

Either way, be thorough in your application process: create an employment application and have each person you might be interested in hiring complete it, even if you already know them. I personally prefer asking open-ended questions on the application, rather than asking for information about their education background or criminal record.

The purpose of open-ended questions is partly just to get them write. If they’re going to be writing for you, whether it be blog posts or emails, you want to be able to see their writing style, make sure they can communicate clearly, and that they have good grammar and punctuation.

I’ve asked questions like, “Tell me about a recent deal you’ve found”, “What types of blogs do you enjoy reading and why?”, and “What has been your favorite and least favorite job and why?”.

A resume may not be a necessity, but on the application, I would ask them to include any relevant work experience. Make sure to also ask for any places you can see their work online, such as a personal blog.

You’re Hired!

You may want to do a trial run with any prospective assistants, just to make sure they are the right person for the job. This should be a paid trial, as you don’t want to take advantage of someone and get some free work out of the deal. Whether or not you do a trial run is up to you – it may be more of a pain to set up than it’s worth, but it may also prevent future headache.

Once you’re ready to hire the assistant, send them a job offer that details the job description, the hours you expect them to work, and the rate and method of pay.

When they accept, you’ll want to have them sign a few important documents, which is what we’ll be covering in the next post in the How To Hire An Assistant Series.

Carrie Isaac is definitely not an accountant or attorney, and doesn’t even pretend to play one online! She’s sharing from her personal experience with her business, Colorado Bargains LLC. Find her (and her assistants) blogging at Denver Bargains and Colorado Springs Bargains!

Now that you’ve hired someone, you’re anxious to get them started working for you – but there are a few things you’ll want to do before they officially start work.

If you’re hiring an employee, make sure you consult your state’s business center, usually on your Secretary of State’s website, to figure out what types of licenses and tax requirements you’ll need.

For any assistant, you’ll want to have them sign a non-compete and non-disclosure agreement, or you may simply want to combine it all into an “employment agreement”.

A non-compete agreement should stipulate what restrictions your assistant has on working for competing businesses. You may want to keep them from working for other competing blogs or businesses at the same time as yours, or even extend it for a period after their relationship with you is over. This is not something to skip over; it is very important to protect your business!

A non-disclosure agreement should stipulate that they are to keep private any proprietary information they learn about the business – things like passwords, trade secrets, your business plan, etc. Again, this is a very important part of protecting your business – don’t skip this!

Depending on what type of arrangement you’ve setup, you may need to have your assistant complete a form to verify their employment eligibility and/or Social Security number so you can pay them. (Usually a W9 for contract labor and an I9 or W4 for employees.)

This is not the time to get sloppy – you need to make sure you do things the right way to protect yourself, your business, and your employee, so make sure you cover all your bases! You may want to consult an attorney and/or accountant (even well before this point) to make sure you do things the best way.

Carrie Isaac is definitely not an accountant or attorney, and doesn’t even pretend to play one online! She’s sharing from her personal experience with her business, Colorado Bargains LLC. Find her (and her assistants) blogging at Denver Bargains and Colorado Springs Bargains!

After you’ve clearly defined the job you’ll be hiring for, you need to find someone to hire. There are three types of people you could hire:

• An “official” virtual assistant, who may provide services to a variety of people. This type of assistant would typically bill you by the hour, and since they are billing you, you probably don’t have to worry about payroll taxes.
• An assistant who works as contract labor. This person is likely someone you hire specifically to do work for you, and is not running their own virtual assistant business; they’re just working for you. You don’t have to worry about payroll taxes – you’ll just be giving them a 1099 at the end of the year – however, you must be very careful with their tasks so that you don’t cross the line over into an employee.
• An actual employee, who likely works hourly. You’ll be responsible for payroll taxes and worker’s compensation insurance, but you will have greater flexibility in what you can have them do.

There are pros and cons to each of these arrangements. Here are some of my personal thoughts:

A virtual assistant seems ideal in that they can, in effect, work hourly without the headache of payroll taxes and the other things that come with having an employee, but they may not be as flexible as you’d like, and they may be juggling many clients at once. A virtual assistant may have a set way of doing things and may not be willing to adapt their systems to your preferences. For those of us who prefer to have things done just-so, it may not be an ideal setup.

Contract labor seems like a great option – just give them a tax form at the end of the year for everything you’ve paid them and you’re good! But, the rules about who can be considered contract labor are very strict! This article on IRS.gov explains more about the difference between hiring contract labor and having an employee, specifically this statement:

A worker is an employee when the business has the right to direct and control the worker.

If you hire contract labor, you may not be able to have them work a certain number of hours per week, you may not be able to stipulate what day or time they work, you may not be able to impose deadlines, you may not pay them by the hour, etc.

Hiring someone as an employee is great in terms of flexibility, but there is a lot of additional expense. This is the route we’ve chosen for our business, and I believe it’s been a good decision, but we are paying out a lot of money every month – in addition to payroll!

For example, an employer is responsible for the employer’s portion of FICA and Medicare taxes, unemployment taxes, unemployment insurance, etc. We also pay a payroll service every month to process our payroll and the tax reports that are required to have employees.

I started with an assistant working as contract labor, and then needed to transition to hourly employees so that I could be more flexible in what I assigned.

It was difficult to be able to assign new tasks when we had to determine a flat rate for each project, as we did with contract labor. When we wanted to add some tasks that were 20 to 30 minute tasks, it became a hassle to have to assign dollar values to simple, short tasks and have it be worth the assistant’s time to take on the task, but also not overpay.

Which option is best for your blog is really going to depend on your needs. Make sure you clearly define the role of the person you’re hiring before you decide whether to hire a virtual assistant, contract labor, or an employee – what you need them to do greatly affects which type of arrangement you can choose!

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how to find someone to hire.

Carrie Isaac is definitely not an accountant or attorney, and doesn’t even pretend to play one online! She’s sharing from her personal experience with her business, Colorado Bargains LLC. Find her (and her assistants) blogging at Denver Bargains and Colorado Springs Bargains!

So, you’ve reached a point in your blog where you can’t personally handle it all anymore, and you’re ready to hire someone to help. Where to start? Should you hire a virtual assistant? An daily employee? Someone to oversee a specific project?

Here are some helpful things to think about as you make the big decision to hire someone:

First, start making a list of what specifically you’d like help with: if you want help creating content, define what types of content you’d be willing to let someone else write.

If you want help with emails, define which types of emails you would want someone else to handle, and which ones you’d still want to respond to personally. If you’re looking for help with advertising sales, decide how much control you want to maintain – do you want to personally approve every ad, or can you relinquish full control to an advertising manager?

Answering all of these questions will help you know what type of person you need to hire, and what type of employment you’ll need to set up, which is what we’ll talk about tomorrow.

Make your list over the course of a few weeks, writing down tasks that someone else could do for you as you think of them, and clearly defining what types of things you can outsource. You may find that you’re not willing to give up doing certain things yourself, which is fine – you just want to know exactly what you think you are comfortable with someone else doing before you start looking for someone to hire.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the different types of employment arrangements and the pros and cons of each setup.

Carrie Isaac is definitely not an accountant or attorney, and doesn’t even pretend to play one online! She’s sharing from her personal experience with her business, Colorado Bargains LLC. Find her (and her assistants) blogging at Denver Bargains and Colorado Springs Bargains!