Do you know what the term Virtual Assistant means? Being a ‘virtual’ assistant doesn’t mean a faceless voice like Siri or Alexa. I’ve made this video to explain #Fatherted style the difference between real and virtual!

This week I’ve researched venues for Christmas dinner, put together course materials, made travel arrangements for a business trip, taken the minutes at an HR investigation case and make lots of diary appointments. Does this sound like pretty much your average day too as a PA? The big difference for me is that I’m self-employed; I completed these tasks for several different clients and I didn’t have to beat terrible traffic to go to work because I’m a Virtual (Personal) Assistant, a “VA”.

There are 4 questions that people already in administrative industry invariably ask me when I tell them I’m a VA:

What does it take to make the leap to self-employment?

This is the question on the lips of anyone who’s ever thought about leaving the security of a full time job to go it alone. Making the decision is the first step, but how to turn that into a reality and stick at it is not always as clear cut.

Three years ago, I was working as a Personal Assistant (PA) to a senior Director in the headquarters of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where I’d gone to work 9yrs previously as a bi-lingual Project Administrator. I’d got to the stage in my career where I could go as far as I wanted in my grade and had already taken a sideways step to get more experience. I knew I wanted to use the skills I already had developed in 14yrs of varied administrative posts: customer –orientated , knowledge sharing, adapting to different personalities , evolving with new technologies and working with a high level of autonomy but I wasn’t quite sure which way to turn as I couldn’t find a role which was demanding and interesting enough.