Frequently Asked Questions
ACCOUNT AND PRICING
Free allows you to post a job and see job applications. It gives you a good idea of if you’re going to find someone good.
There’s a good reason we don’t offer a free trial.
You can only interview workers once you’ve paid for an account.
If you consider our money back guarantee, there’s not much risk. If you don’t find someone, ask for your money back. We’re a US based company.
We honor our guarantee.
We charge up front so we don’t have to mark up salaries. Nobody likes middlemen and unnecessary markups. After you try it we think you’ll agree.
Very few people who discover OnlineJobs.ph ever go back to the old way of oursourcing (upwork, freelancer, fiverr…).
We offered YourVABuddy.ph at $49. We felt like the price raise was justified with rising costs.
A lower price increases scammers, increases hiring competition, and increases low quality employers. We want good employers who care about the people they hire.
Plus, it helps us continue to develop the site so you have a great experience hiring.
Yes, if you initially purchase a monthly Pro subscription, you can later change your subscription to the Premium level and only pay the prorated difference for your remaining upgraded time. The upgrade price will be shown on the pricing page.
PAYING YOUR WORKERS
Full-time
– Salaries range from $400 – $2000/month for full-time work.
– At $400 you’re getting someone with no experience. They can do data entry work.
– Around $700/month is where you’ll start to find really competent people. People with a couple years experience, perfect english, knowledge to contribute to your business.
– You can find the cream of the crop above $1000/month.
Part-time
– Salaries for part-time work are about 65% of full-time work. It’s not half as much for half the work because it’s not considered stable work.
– They can’t support their family on part-time work so it’s more risky. It’s still really affordable for you.
Hourly
– $3-$15/hour.
– At $3 you’re getting a complete beginner.
– At $15 you’re getting someone who is an expert.
Notes:
How much you pay depends on what you negotiate with them. We don’t dictate salary amounts. Their profile says how much they want to make. It’s not a required amount. You might pay less, you might pay more.
Filipinos usually prefer salaried work. Hourly pay is usually considered temporary in the Philippines, but not always. Hourly usually means turnover, but not always.
You can definitely hire someone hourly.
We suggest you look at a bunch of profiles which have the skills you’re looking for. See how much they’re asking for. That will give you a pretty good idea of how much you should pay.
We always recommend paying salaried. Filipinos like it better and we find most employers business success rate increases faster with salaried instead of hourly. We find paying hourly is the equivalent of being a manager and paying a salary is the equivalent of being the CEO.
However, you can do whatever you want. Just be sure to work it out with the worker before you hire them.
Either way, don’t try to cheat them. Pay a fair wage.
TRUST
Trust is interesting. Anytime something is unfamiliar to us we don’t trust it.
And yet, Filipinos (generally) are more trustworthy than people in the US, or in Canada, or the UK, or …
There’s a culture of honesty in the Philippines with foreign bosses. It’s different there. You’ll see this almost immediately upon hiring someone.
They want to make you happy. They want you to trust them. They want to do great work for you.
It took us over a year before we realized we could trust workers from the Philippines. Today we trust new hires from day 1. After you hire someone you’ll probably start noticing little things that let you know you can trust them or not.
Of note… in the Philippines they have the same feeling of distrust that you have. They don’t trust you. You’ll need to do things to gain their trust.
Our full treatment about How you trust a Virtual Assistant with your business info.
How do you find and qualify that person you can trust?
When interviewing, ask lots of questions. Do this via email, it’s much faster than doing a live interview. You’ll quickly see who you can trust and who you can’t. Ask about:
– Their experience
– Their previous work
– How they would solve a problem
– Where they live
– Their family
– Their internet speed
– Their computer situation
You’ll see their personality and weed out the bad from the good.
If you ask a lot of questions you’ll figure out pretty quickly if you can trust the person you’re talking with.
Before hiring someone, have them do a test task. Something small. Something simple for you to ask them to do. Bad apples don’t want to jump through hoops.
If you follow good recruiting steps, finding someone you can trust is easy. However, in the end, trust is earned, and they will try to earn your trust.
Well…we think you can…but that doesn’t really matter.
We’ve had hundreds of thousands of employers use the site. We’ve been around since 2009. We’re a USA based company. We’re not a fly-by-night outfit.
You can search for reviews and see what others say. You can look at the real results other employers are getting.
In the end, we have a money back guarantee and we honor it.
Credit card data is Visa standards compliant. It’s not going to the Philippines.
Feel free to reach out if you have questions.
How do I protect myself and my sensitive information?
There are a number of things you can do.
1.
Use a password manager like LastPass
It allows you to share access to accounts without them ever seeing the password. You can revoke their access at any time. With this, you never have to worry about them hijacking an account because they never had the password in the first place.
2.
Don’t give full access at first.
Give more access to things as you trust them more.
3.
The Philippines is a very strict country.
Theft laws are very strict. The government there understands that VAs are an important part of the economy, so they made digital theft punishments TWICE as much as normal theft. They don’t want to steal your sensitive info.
4.
The VA you hire will be just like a VA in your office.
In your office someone could steal sensitive info. A VA could steal sensitive info. In the Philippines they’re less likely to because of theft laws. Also because that info isn’t very valuable to them.
You should take steps to protect yourself. They’re not hard. Don’t give a new VA the keys to the kingdom.
I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of employers hire VAs from the Philippines. Yes, people in your industry. HIPPA laws, SCC regulations, industries with sensitive client information. Yes, people in your industry are hiring VA’s to work in their business. I’ve seen very few cases of theft, and almost every one of them was because an employer tried to get someone to do work and then not pay them for the work.
CULTURE
In the Philippines all employees get a bonus once a year of one months pay – the “13th month”.
This bonus is paid in December, but is NOT a Christmas bonus. If you want to give a Christmas bonus, that’s separate.
Do you have to pay this? No.
Should you? Yes! Absolutely!
Your workers will expect it. Actually, they need it. It’s part of their budgeting for normal life’s expenses.
Unfortunately, Filipino VAs have gained this bad reputation due to the actions of a few individuals. In most cases, this doesn’t happen. Filipino online workers are incredibly loyal and reliable.
When it does happen, it’s usually because they don’t understand something or they’re worried that you won’t be happy with their work. You can solve it by ensuring you’re giving good training and good feedback.
