18 Must-Have Skills for Virtual Assistants

Managing calendars is one of the most common administrative tasks that virtual assistants need to handle.

Many VAs are expected to schedule and coordinate meetings, appointments, and other types of events. This also often entails setting reminders and sending out invites.

All of this obviously requires you to be highly organized, and it also requires familiarity with common calendar and scheduling software, such as Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.

If you haven’t used those tools much, it’s worth spending a little time learning their features so that you’re ready to hit the ground running when you land your first client.

Many virtual assistance tasks involve accurately entering data into different systems and formats.

For instance, VAs often have to collect and store customer information, process orders, compile reports, and track payments. In many cases, this entails typing the info into a spreadsheet or an online form, which requires reasonably quick keyboarding skills and attention to detail (to maintain accuracy).

You may also have to periodically organize datasheets by removing duplicates and correcting inaccuracies. If you know the basics of Excel VBA programming, you’ll have a significant leg up.

Most virtual assistants have to prepare professional documents for their clients, which can range from business reports to grant proposals all the way up to presentations for important company-wide meetings.

To do this effectively, you should be comfortable with basic office software, such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. It’ll also help if you have an eye for layout and aesthetics—you don’t need to be a full-on designer, but you should be able to incorporate charts, graphs, and other visual elements when needed.

Lastly, you should also be a decent self-editor and proofreader. As a VA, it’s extremely important to turn in work that’s free of typos and grammatical errors.

Your goal is to reduce the work your client has to do for themselves, not add to it by making them proofread your documents.

Some VAs are expected to help their clients make travel plans. If that’s one of your duties, you’ll need to be empathetic, engaged, and good at asking questions so that you can get a feel for their preferences and budget. That way, you can select appropriate flights, accommodations, and so on.

You should also familiarize yourself with the actual nuts and bolts of the booking process, including how to use websites like Kayak and Expedia.

It’s possible you’ll also be tasked with creating detailed itineraries for your clients. If so, you’ll need to be familiar with their appointments and reservations and keep the contact info for all the relevant parties on file. (That brings us back to organizational skills, which are all-important for virtually every VA.)

As a virtual assistant, you may have to conduct research, which can come in many forms. You may find yourself:

• Investigating your clients’ competitors
• Digging into overall market trends
• Analyzing SEO keywords
• Reviewing and summarizing recent academic studies

… or conducting another type of research entirely.

You’ll then have to analyze your findings and compile them into useful, comprehensive reports with summaries of key insights and actionable suggestions.

Communicating effectively, both verbally and in writing, is an indispensable skill for virtual assistants.

You’ll need to be able to answer phone calls politely and without ever getting frazzled or losing your cool. Be prepared to take messages, transfer calls, and be an active listener. Engage meaningfully in each conversation—don’t just field it on autopilot.

With all of that said, the majority of the communications you have will probably be handled over email (or some sort of messaging service, such as Microsoft Teams or Slack). You’ll need solid written communication skills to make yourself clear on those apps. It probably goes without saying that you also need to be attentive and responsive so that messages don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Relatedly, you may need to communicate with your clients’ customers over the phone or via email. If you’re tasked with this responsibility, you’ll be expected to be helpful, extremely polite, and otherwise provide exceptional customer service, even when the people you’re dealing with are frustrated and short-tempered.

In addition to just having a way with words (the foundation of good written and verbal communication), you should also get good at sussing out what people want or need. Bear in mind that you may sometimes have to do this when they’re not sure what the problem is themselves. Again, empathy will be a major plus here.

Computer literacy is crucial if you want to become a virtual assistant. After all, one of the key words in the job title is “virtual.”

At the very least, you should be proficient in the Microsoft Office and Google Workspace software suites. You may also encounter these software tools on the job, a few of which we’ve already mentioned:

• Messaging programs (e.g., Outlook, Slack, and Zoom)
• Accounting and bookkeeping tools (QuickBooks)
• Time tracking tools (Toggl Track and Clockify)
• Scheduling and appointment tools (Square Appointments and Calendly)
• Project management platforms (Trello and Asana)
• Password managers (LastPass, Bitwarden, etc.)
• Social media management tools (Hootsuite and Zoho Social)
• Email marketing software (Mailchimp)
• SEO research tools (SEMrush and Ahrefs)

Of course, you probably won’t need all of those tools—the ones you’ll use will depend on the nature of your VA gig.

More important than proficiency in any one piece of software is the ability to pick up a new tool in short order, without getting stymied or needing to have clients hold your hand while you get up to speed.

Depending on your niche, you might need to handle social media accounts for your client. Typically, the goal will be to promote their business or personal brand.

Social media management involves:

• Brainstorming content ideas
• Actually creating the content
• Posting it across various platforms on a set schedule
• Monitoring engagement rates
• Analyzing performance metrics

In plain English, that means making posts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and using analytics tools to track how your posts are performing over time: how many new viewers or readers they’re bringing in, how engaged they are, and so on.

Social media management is more specialized than the general administrative skills and soft skills we’ve listed so far, and if it’s not your intended focus as a VA, you don’t have to worry about it. However, VAs who are competent in this are in high demand, so if you’re interested, giving yourself a crash course in social media management would be well worth your while.

Lead generation is the process of identifying potential customers and getting them interested in your client’s products or services.

There’s no one right way to carry out lead generation, but popular strategies include:

• Creating email campaigns
• Marketing on social media
• Hosting in-person events
• Writing blog posts (content marketing)
• Submitting guest posts to other blogs
• Using paid advertising

As with social media management, lead generation isn’t something that anybody can just jump into; it requires certain specialized skills. However, if it is in your wheelhouse, you can use your expertise to command higher rates from your clients.

As a virtual assistant, you won’t be responsible for maintaining a business’s overall financial health (and if you have clients who seem to expect that of you, run—that’s a sign their business might be poorly managed).

However, your clients may ask you to support their finance team by pitching in with:

• Budgeting
• Bookkeeping
• Sending invoices
• Tracking payroll
• Processing payments
• Recording expenses

In a nutshell, you might have to field some of the HR-adjacent aspects of a business’s finances. Again, not all VAs need this skill, but if you have it, it’s a definite asset.

Soft skills are arguably just as important as hard skills for VAs. One of the most important is the ability to collaborate on a team.

As a virtual assistant, your job is to help people—it’s in the name of your role—which means you need to be patient and have to know how to be a team player and work well with others.

From the duties and responsibilities we’ve already listed so far, you’ve probably already gathered that virtual assistants often have to juggle several tasks and meet multiple deadlines at once.

To succeed as a VA, you need to be a good multitasker. In other words, you need to be able to juggle several things without getting overwhelmed.

Multitasking can be tricky and stressful if you don’t know how to manage your time effectively and stay productive. To maintain a structured workflow, many VAs use various organizational tools, which brings us to the next point:

Your duties as a VA may vary from one day to the next depending on your client’s needs.

To successfully carry out your job, you should be flexible and always be prepared to learn new, relevant skills quickly.

You should also be prepared (and motivated) to practice continuous learning and keep your skills sharp.

New tools are being released all the time, with the rise of generative AI models, such as ChatGPT, being the biggest and most recent example of this. You need the flexibility to incorporate them into your workflow if that’s what your clients want.

Virtual assistants are often tasked with difficult challenges. Your clients will throw problems at you and expect you to work your magic and fix them on your own. You’ll need to be able to think outside the box to do this.

The best VAs are able to save the day when something doesn’t go as planned by suggesting workarounds (and having the judgment to tell when it’s okay to go ahead and execute on something, versus when you really need to get your client’s go-ahead first).

Critical thinking is just as important as creativity when it comes to solving those problems we keep talking about. What’s more, it ensures you won’t get too carried away by your ideas before you determine whether they’re actually feasible.

“Critical thinking” is arguably what you get when you take creativity and add common sense and good judgment. It’s something that you probably already have if you’ve spent a while in the working world (and if you haven’t, it’ll develop naturally as you gain experience and get a sense for what usually works and what doesn’t).

Attention to detail is important in almost any type of work, and virtual assistance is no exception. This soft skill is required for every task we’ve mentioned in this article, from managing calendars and entering data to preparing documents and conducting research.

The bottom line is that as a VA, your goal is to make your clients’ lives easier. To do that, you need to be able to do your work correctly, without making careless mistakes.

If you’re easily distracted and don’t pay attention, your plans may go awry, and you’ll risk losing your job. Conversely, if you have a reputation for being consistently on the ball, you’ll never lack for work as a VA.

Despite being at the very bottom of this list, discipline and reliability are just as important as the other skills in this article if you want to get clients as a virtual assistant.

You’ll be handling many things that will directly affect your employers’ schedules and business operations. You’ll need to have a strong work ethic to get everything done professionally and on time.

If you demonstrate that you’re reliable, it’ll build trust between you and your clients. This will create a healthy working dynamic, which will make your job more pleasant and encourage your clients to stick with you (and potentially pay you higher rates as an incentive to stick with them).