The short version: A good virtual assistant job description names the actual tasks you need done, the tools you use, the hours you expect, and the pay you’re offering, with no vague filler about “wearing many hats.” Write it specifically enough that the wrong people rule themselves out before they apply, because that saves you far more time than a generic ad ever will.
The job ad that got me 46 applications and zero good ones
A few years back I posted a job ad that read something like “Looking for a proactive, self-starting VA to help grow my business, must be a team player, flexible hours, great opportunity.” I got 46 applications in four days. I interviewed nine people. Not one of them could tell me, without checking, what “helping grow my business” meant to them. Because I hadn’t told them. I’d written an ad that described a feeling, not a job.
The second time round I rewrote the whole thing. I listed exactly what the role involved: managing my inbox down to zero every day, scheduling and confirming client calls in Calendly, building and sending my weekly newsletter in Mailchimp, formatting blog posts in WordPress, and doing basic research for speaking engagements. I said the hours were 10 a week to start, flexible but with a two hour overlap with UK working hours, and I said the pay was 15 to 18 pounds an hour depending on experience. I got 14 applications. I hired someone within a week who was still working with me two years later.
Fewer applications is not a failure. It’s the whole point of a specific description.
Name the tasks, not the traits
Most bad VA job ads are full of adjectives and empty of verbs. “Detail-oriented, organised, tech-savvy” tells a candidate nothing about what their Tuesday will look like. Replace every trait with a task. Instead of “organised,” write “will keep my Google Calendar updated and send me a Sunday night summary of the week ahead.” Instead of “tech-savvy,” write “comfortable in Notion, Canva and Zoom, will need to learn our CRM (HubSpot) in the first month.”
If you’re not sure what your own tasks even are, that’s worth sitting with for a moment, because it usually means you haven’t done the audit that should come before hiring at all. I’ve written before about the full range of things a VA can cover, from inbox and diary management to social media scheduling and light bookkeeping, in this guide to what a virtual assistant does and what to charge. Read that first if your job description is still a vague paragraph in your head rather than a list on a page.
Say the pay. Just say it.
Here’s the bit most hiring guides skip, because it’s uncomfortable for business owners to admit: hiding the rate doesn’t protect you, it just wastes everyone’s time, including yours. I’ve seen ads that say “competitive rate, DM for details.” That phrase tells experienced VAs one thing: the rate is probably low and the poster knows it. Good VAs, the ones you want, filter out those ads on sight. What you’re left with is a pool of people desperate enough to apply without knowing the pay, which is not the pool you want to hire from.
Put a number or a range in the ad. If you’re paying 12 pounds an hour for someone brand new, say so, that’s a fair beginner rate and plenty of people starting out will take it gladly, especially those trying to break into virtual assistant work as a total beginner. If you need someone with three years of experience running paid ads and managing a team, expect to pay 25 to 35 pounds an hour and say that too. Naming the number does the screening for you before a single interview happens.
The seven things every good VA job description includes
- A real job title, not a vague one. “Executive Virtual Assistant, Inbox and Diary Management” beats “Virtual Assistant Wanted” every time, because it tells people exactly what to expect before they even open the ad.
- A short list of the actual weekly tasks. Five to eight bullet points, written as verbs: “manage inbox,” “book travel,” “draft social captions,” not abstractions like “support the business.”
- The named tools. Say Asana, Slack, Xero, Later, whatever you use. This lets candidates self-assess in seconds instead of guessing and applying anyway.
- Hours and overlap. State the total weekly hours and any specific hours you need them online, especially if you’re in the UK and they might be applying from the Philippines or South Africa, where a lot of excellent VAs are based.
- The pay, as a number or a clear range. Not “competitive.” A number.
- How to apply, and one small test. More on this below, but it’s the single biggest filter you have.
- What success looks like in 90 days. One sentence. “By month three, my inbox is at zero every evening and I never have to chase you for a status update.” This does more to attract the right person than any list of traits.
Build in a filter, not just a form
I ask every applicant to do one small, specific thing in their application that a generic applicant wouldn’t bother with. For my last hire, I asked candidates to reply with the subject line “Tuesday inbox” and to tell me, in three sentences, how they’d triage 40 unread emails from a mix of clients, invoices and newsletters. It’s a two minute task. Roughly a third of applicants ignored the instruction entirely and sent a copy paste cover letter. That’s fine, it told me who to skip without a call.
This works because it tests for the actual skill, attention to instructions, rather than a proxy for it like a polished CV. A CV tells you someone can write a CV. A small task tells you how someone works.
Be honest about the parts of the job that are boring
Every VA job has dull bits, data entry, chasing invoices, formatting the same report every Friday. Job ads that pretend the role is all “exciting growth opportunities” and skip the boring 30 percent are setting up a resignation three months in. I put one line in every ad now: “Some of this work is repetitive, expect to spend an hour a week on data entry and reconciling receipts.” People who hate that kind of task self-select out. People who don’t mind it, or who are actively good at it, stay for longer and complain less. It’s a small sentence that saves a lot of turnover.
Think about who’s applying
A lot of the best VA candidates are people rebuilding a career around flexible hours, parents managing school pickups, people in different time zones, career changers moving out of admin or teaching roles into remote work. If your ad demands “must be available 9 to 5 UK time, no exceptions,” you’ve just excluded a huge chunk of very capable people, including many of the parents I hear from who are actively looking, covered in this piece on virtual assistant jobs for moms and what pays. If your work needs live coverage during set hours, say so and pay for it. If it doesn’t, and most VA work doesn’t, build in flexibility and say that too. “Core hours 1pm to 3pm UK time, rest flexible” tells a far bigger pool of good candidates that this job could work for them.
A short example of a description that works
Here’s roughly what I’d post today if I were hiring again:
- Title: Part-time Virtual Assistant, Inbox and Client Scheduling
- Hours: 12 hours a week, core overlap Tuesday and Thursday 10am to 12pm UK time, rest flexible
- Pay: 16 to 20 pounds an hour depending on experience, paid monthly
- Tasks: manage and triage a shared inbox to zero daily, schedule client calls via Calendly, prepare a weekly summary document, format and schedule LinkedIn posts in Buffer, basic expense tracking in Xero
- Tools you’ll use: Gmail, Calendly, Buffer, Xero, Notion
- To apply: send a short note and answer this, in three sentences, how would you handle an inbox with 40 unread messages, three of which are urgent client questions?
- 90 day success: my inbox is clear every evening, calls are booked without me touching my calendar, and I’ve stopped chasing you for updates
That’s the whole ad. It’s specific enough that someone reading it for 20 seconds knows exactly whether to apply, and specific enough that the person who does apply already half understands the job before the interview starts.
What to leave out
Cut “fast learner,” “wears many hats,” “rockstar,” “ninja,” and “must be a perfect fit for our culture.” None of these tell a candidate anything useful, and all of them attract people who are good at sounding enthusiastic rather than people who are good at the job. If you catch yourself writing a phrase that could apply to literally any job in any industry, delete it and replace it with a task.
Also cut the requirement for a degree unless the role needs one, which for most VA work it doesn’t. Some of the strongest VAs I’ve worked with came from customer service or teaching backgrounds with no formal qualification in admin at all, and plenty are starting from scratch, which is exactly the ground covered in this guide on becoming a virtual assistant with no experience. If your ad quietly filters those people out through jargon or unnecessary requirements, you’re shrinking your own pool for no good reason.
Where to post it once it’s written
A specific, well-written description does far better on platforms full of experienced freelancers, such as Upwork or a dedicated VA agency board, than on generic job boards, because those candidates have seen hundreds of vague ads and respond to specificity. If you want to understand how VAs themselves evaluate an ad before applying, which shapes what makes a job posting convert, it’s worth reading the flip side of this from the candidate’s perspective in how to get hired as a freelance virtual assistant. Knowing what a good candidate is looking for makes it much easier to write an ad they’ll respond to. And if your own working setup is remote first, it’s worth being upfront in the ad about what a typical remote day with you looks like, which is a big part of what I cover in this guide to virtual assistant jobs from home.
One last thing worth saying out loud
A tight, specific job description will get you fewer applications than a vague one. Every time. If your goal is a big inbox of applicants to feel reassured by, write the vague version. If your goal is to hire one good person quickly and keep them, write the specific version, put a number on the pay, and accept that 14 good applications beat 46 mediocre ones every single time.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a virtual assistant job description be?
Aim for 250 to 400 words. Long enough to list the real tasks, tools, hours and pay, short enough that it doesn’t turn into a wish list of unrelated traits. If you’re writing more than 500 words, you’re probably describing three jobs, not one.
Should I include the salary or hourly rate in a VA job ad?
Yes, always. A number or a clear range filters candidates before you spend time interviewing anyone, and it signals to experienced VAs that the ad is worth their time, which improves the quality of who applies.
What’s the biggest mistake people make writing a VA job description?
Listing personality traits instead of actual tasks. Words like “proactive” and “organised” describe nothing a candidate can measure themselves against, whereas “manage my inbox to zero daily” tells them exactly what the job involves.
Should I ask for a CV or a test task when hiring a VA?
Ask for both, but weight the small task more heavily. A CV shows history, a short specific task, like triaging a sample inbox or drafting a mock reply, shows how someone thinks and works right now.
