Different Types of Virtual Assistants

The virtual assistant industry is one of the most diverse! No matter what your strengths/weaknesses, or your experience level, you can create the virtual assistant path that’s right for you by specializing in a particular area.

There are many different types of virtual assistants, here are the main ones:

1. Bookkeeping Virtual Assistants

In this type of role, you’d be handling the books for different businesses you come across.

It’s likely you’ll find a lot of startups that simply don’t have the capital to hire a bookkeeping department, and so it falls to you instead.

If you have any educational experience in accounting or finance-based subjects, you’d probably do well specializing in this area.

2. Social Media Virtual Assistants

Chances are if you’re looking to get started being a VA, you’re of an age where you pretty much grew up with social media.

You may not be a marketing graduate or have all the knowledge on how to make social work professionally, but you’re familiar with all of the platforms and how they work.

In which case, you could probably specialize as a social media virtual assistant. Plenty of companies starting up have owners that don’t understand social at all. In which case, you could probably convince them to employ you as their social media handler, and you can help them to grow the business online.

Just beware that you’ll find a lot of competition in this space. Not just other social media virtual assistants, but thousands upon thousands of marketing freelancers and marketing agencies of various sizes.

Have a positive abundance mindset - there are enough clients to go round, but do consider how you’re going to stand out, succeed at social for your clients, and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

3. Administrative Virtual Assistants

Administrative virtual assistants handle the day-to-day admin for businesses so their employees don’t have to. This could be the difference between a massively disorganized company and a well-oiled machine.

If you’re a particularly organized person with an ability to come in and organize systems, handle lots of different micro-tasks, and keep it all together in your head: you’d be perfect for this.

There are a lot of businesses and self-employed professionals out there that are struggling through bad admin. In which case, they’d want to hire you to help fix that so it doesn’t affect their business down the line.

4. Customer Service Virtual Assistants

Say a business deals with a lot of different customers that typically have questions or complaints about their product.

They may not have the team to handle this. Or their team may not be the best equipped to deal with angry or difficult customers.

If you find that you’ve always been agreeable to other people and are good at explaining things and defusing anger, then you could be an absolutely stellar customer service VA.

It will help if you’ve had some customer service-based roles before, which you likely have had in your younger days as a student.

In 2023, lots of companies will be hiring customer service VAs as brands continue to understand the importance of getting along with customers. Start quick to be ahead of the curve.

5. Graphic Design Virtual Assistants

If you’re an artistic person and have created graphic designs and images in the past, then you could easily slot into being a graphic design VA!

As with social media VAs, you’d be competing with marketers and graphic designers, of which the market is fairly saturated - so expect a lot of competition.

However, many companies are often looking for people who can make visual creatives for their brand, so a bit of time online would help you find the right clients.

This can be a great opportunity to express yourself creatively day-to-day while getting paid to do it!

Be the Virtual Assistant That Best Reflects You

Starting a new career as a VA can be a scary prospect, but you likely have a set of skills and experiences already that will help you!

The amazing thing about the VA industry is how broad it is. You can really carve out your own path based on the type of work you want to do with people.

You won’t know what type of virtual assistant you want to be without getting started. So don’t wait! Get started today.