Quick facts - I had a ~3% conversion rate to interview from purely Virtual Assistant (VA) applications - 240 applications - 8 interviews total - 4 of the companies I was actually interested in - Cost: $0.70 per application after trial period (Not including a slightly higher rate I paid for during a trial period with the VA). YMMV with this as it depends on how you negotiate. - Hired a SWE based out of LatAm looking to do additional gig work - I’m a US based SWE looking for a mid level role - ~20 hours of work to go from zero to first non-trial period application submitted by VA. The way I see it, there a 2 approaches to a job hunt: 1. High volume, and low precision. This is just applying to a large enough number of jobs with goal of a few percentage converting. 2. Low volume, and high precision. This would be networking, carefully crafted emails, attending in person recruiting events, etc… The rest of this post details how I outsourced the first part. # The Process ### Finding a VA I found a VA through Upwork, which seemed to have higher quality freelancers than other platforms like Fiverr. I specifically looked for someone familiar with software engineering to navigate the nuances in terminology across different applications. I created a job post on Upwork, inputting all my main asks into ChatGPT to generate a comprehensive job posting detailing the kind of job I was looking for and what my expectations were for the VA. After posting, people applied to the job or I could invite freelancers I knew on the site to apply. ### Interviewing I found it critical to conduct interviews and do a test run with a few candidates. During the interviews, I looking to quantify their performance but also considered intangible factors like their listening skills, empathy, and ability to pitch ideas. I was also looking to answer questions like Do they have experience doing this or similar work? How much do they know about the industry? How fluently do they speak English? ### Test run For the test run, I created a Notion document with a detailed list of my censored/aliased information, preferences, and answers to common application questions. I also them to submit a link to each job they applied to via a form that I tracked in a Notion database. This allowed me to verify if they applied to jobs that I was genuinely interested in and if they completed the required amount of jobs. I selected three individuals for the test run, each tasked with applying to 40 jobs and sending me a report halfway through. I gave them feedback once they sent in the report, which helped me gauge how well they followed instructions and received feedback. ### Hiring When it came to hiring, I preferred milestone-based payment over hourly as it was more measurable and transparent to both of us as opposed to hourly work. We ended up agreeing on milestones of 100 applications for $70. Every 100 applications I would review the work before starting another set. ### Process and Workflow For the process and workflow, I emphasized privacy and security by using Google Voice and an email alias on my resume. Thank god I did because some VAs applied to jobs via some sketchy sites even though I told them not to. Definitely agree on a deadline for the work. Whenever I have not timeboxed work with a VA it basically never gets done unless I follow up multiple times. Tracking jobs they applied to in Notion not only let me collect data on the job hunt, but also doubled as a small project management tool where I could set the status of where in the process I was with a job, add any notes, etc… # Takeaways - Vibe matters —like any job I asked “Is this someone I would actually enjoy working with?”. Some of the VAs I interviewed were pushy, couldn’t communicate well, etc… - Keep the search targeted (e.g. focusing on frontend eng roles vs any tech job) - Keep it simple. start with simple tasks before expanding the scope and complexity of work. - Be explicit and patient. I found that early on I needed to be extremely explicit about how I wanted something done, and over time I was able to trust the VA to be independent. - Don’t micromanage. I found that adding too much process and oversight ultimately ended up wasting so much of my own time that I may as well have applied to the jobs on my own. Letting the VA do their thing made the process much smoother. This worked because I ended up choosing someone who I worked well with and trusted. tl;dr Hired and trained a virtual assistant to apply to a few hundred jobs for me so I could focus on networking and interviewing. Got a job.