What Is a Virtual Editorial Assistant?

A Virtual Editorial Assistant is an independent contractor who carries out administrative and editorial tasks for a private individual or an entire company. They reduce an Editor’s workload by performing managerial functions, such as organizing the editorial calendar, monitoring specific project deadlines, and updating contact lists of various publishing houses.  Depending on the type of arrangement you come to with them, a Virtual Editorial Assistant can also be responsible for assigning tasks to writers, ensuring they follow editorial instructions, and proofreading and fact-checking content before publication.

The benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant are numerous, with the list below showing you some of the most significant ones:

• These experts are paid for the exact amount of time they have worked, which makes them more cost-effective in comparison to full-time employees
• You don’t need to provide them with office space, work tools, and other equipment
• You get access to a worldwide talent base from which you can hire a skilled VA whose services can fulfill the demands of your business

What Does a Virtual Editorial Assistant Do?

Virtual Editorial Assistants may have a different scope of responsibilities depending on the company they work for and its area of expertise. 

Some of the most common tasks they perform include:

• Providing administrative support to the editorial staff—One of the main responsibilities of this role is to remotely perform office work, which includes answering emails from clients, contacting various publishing houses, answering customer queries, creating timetables, and monitoring editorial project deadlines 

• Proofreading and fact-checking content—Depending on the type of agreement you have, a Virtual Editorial Assistant should also be able to occasionally proofread writers’ content and make revisions. They may also be responsible for answering routine questions, redirecting writers to senior staff members regarding more complex issues, and ensuring the writers abide by writing guidelines
• Finding appropriate images that writers can use in their articles—These professionals can also be in charge of finding free image-sourcing websites that our writers can rely on if their content requires a specific kind of visual embellishment

How Much Does It Cost To Hire a Virtual Editorial Assistant?

The typical compensation of a Virtual Assistant can fluctuate according to a number of factors. These include the individual’s previous work experience, level of education, technical skills, editing credentials, the current market rates, and their actual location. 

The average salary of a Virtual Editorial Assistant in the United States is $91,449 per year, according to Glassdoor.

Hiring a VA is much more cost-effective—a Virtual Editorial Assistant is paid only for the hours of work they’ve put in. While a full-time employee is entitled to all sorts of benefits—including PTO, sick leave, vacations, insurance, retirement plans, and so on—you avoid paying these costly expenses with a remote VA. An Editorial Virtual Assistant also doesn’t require you to provide them with equipment, office space, and free company lunches, which can save you a lot of money as well.

Expert Tips on Hiring a Virtual Editorial Assistant

Hiring remotely can be a challenging process if you don’t know what you’re in for. You need a competent and skilled individual, but it’s equally important that you find someone reliable enough to handle sensitive internal details.

Here are some guidelines you should follow to find a Virtual Editorial Assistant that meets the needs of your organization:

1. Create a precise job description—To attract and hire the right type of professional, you need a detailed and in-depth job ad. This means explicitly stating the required work experience, education, technical skills, editing certificates, and other miscellaneous credentials that can verify the candidate’s expertise in the role. Doing so will drastically reduce the number of unskilled applicants in your hiring funnel. Simultaneously, you’ll be more likely to draw the attention of a superb Virtual Editorial Assistant who can perform all the vital tasks for your business
2. Don’t base your decision on a candidate’s low rates—It’s a bad idea to hire a VA based on how much they cost. Just because their rates are low, it doesn’t mean you should hire them immediately—they might not be experienced enough, or they could be lacking in crucial skills that the job demands. In extreme cases, such a candidate could prove to be a liability. For this reason, you should do your best to find and hire the most competent and skilled Virtual Editorial Assistant on the market, even if their rates are significantly higher
3. Test and evaluate numerous candidates—The more candidates you test, the better your chances of finding a good fit for your company. It is not a good idea to blindly trust in portfolios and resumes since they seldom represent a candidate’s true capabilities. Finding a Virtual Assistant that meets all your expectations requires patience and effort. While the process may seem tedious, it is better to invest time into finding a suitable candidate straight away than to hire one that has to be trained and micromanaged constantly

Going through the entire hiring process manually can be stressful, inefficient, and extremely time-consuming. With Workello, you can set up a fully automated hiring funnel that will easily filter out unqualified candidates and help you attract and hire the most suitable Editorial VA for your organization!

Hire a Reliable Virtual Editorial Assistant Faster

You can think of Workello as the perfect virtual hiring assistant. Our fully automated hiring funnel is the product of countless hours, over $100,000, and dozens of iterations. With Workello, you can automate testing, scheduling, and email correspondence with candidates so you can focus on scaling your business and maximizing revenue.

Here’s how Workello makes hiring Virtual Editorial Assistants a breeze:

1. Sign up for a free Workello account and launch your automated, pre-configured hiring funnel in less than 3 minutes
2. Post your job ads across LinkedIn, Monster, Facebook, Indeed, and all your other hiring channels and link to your Workello job ad
3. See all your candidates in a single, unified Workello dashboard, regardless of which hiring channel they applied from
4. Reject, test, interview, and send offers to [keyword] Virtual Assistants with a single click
5. Filter out unqualified candidates with Workello’s built-in testing feature
6. Trigger automated emails and move candidates through your hiring funnel simply by changing their status from a drop-down menu
7. Minimize transactional questions by enabling candidates to see a live status page that tells them exactly which stage of your hiring funnel they are in

Don’t waste hundreds of hours looking for a perfect Editorial VA that’s supposed to save you valuable time. Set up a fully automated hiring funnel with Workello, cut your hiring costs by 50%, and start accepting ideal candidates today!

Sign up now and review 5 Editorial VA tests for free.