Just wondering if any of you brilliant VA's have invested time and or money in any of the VA 'certification' programs out there?
Anyone have any thoughts on which ones they really benefitted from, or - found to be a real waste of time?

Would love to find out more about your experiences with the many training options out there!

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I was wondering the same thing and have actually looked into several of them.....

The MVA and PVA though VAcertificatons.com appears to be pretty intense as far as qualification, etc.

I'm eager to hear what others have to say!

Tami Gaston
Weiler-Dane, LLC
www.weiler-dane.com

Honestly, most of them are just money-making vehicles for the sellers. Your money would be better spent having your skills assessed by BrainBench.com or similar.

The best "certification" you can have is extensive real-world experience working in upper level administrative capacities. That's where all VAs get their "certification" from, and it's what we expect newcomers to have as well.

I been in VA business for 10+ years (with 20 years professional experience prior to that), and no client has ever asked me I had any "certification." It's just not something they think or even care about. They are more interested in seeing your intelligence, competence, communication skills, etc., demonstrated in your website, how you speak, how you run your business, how you market, etc.

Plus, it's important to understand the distinction between skills training and business training. Many of the VA programs worth their salt are geared toward helping VAs be better business owners so they can be successful. They aren't going to teach you the skills necessary to do the work. A properly qualified Virtual Assistant is already going to be highly skilled.

If you do spend money on programs, spend them on business training programs or learning new skills that your market frequently indicates they want/need from you. Forget about "certification." It's a rip-off.

I would agree as far as qualifications and experience should be what clients look at. I know based on past employers I've worked with, they would be more willing to hire someone with a certification than someone without. But then again… the articles I've read and organizations I've looked into appear to be more interested in the social or prestige image than actual experience that someone has.

So what's everyone elses take on this! Has anyone out there gone through a certification program?

You've touched on an important distinction--VAs work with clients, not employers. There's an entirely different dynamic going on. If you run your VA practice for 10 years, you will still be able to count on one hand the number of clients who care or even think to ask about certification. They are going to get far more demonstration of your abilities, intelligence, attention to detail, communication skills, etc., through your interaction with them, and that is what matters to them more than anything else.

But if you've got money to spare, you can throw some away on certifications if you like. But I promise you, that's not what is going to help you get clients.

Yes I agree there is a difference between Employer and Client. I was speaking of past employers that I worked for at the time..... that would hire an Independent Contractor with some sort of certification over someone who did not. But that doesn't mean I agree.... I'm just pointing out that there are Companies that prefer certifications or other endorsements, etc. They maybe far and in between, but they are out there.

This is a great topic and I can't wait to hear what others Veterans or Newbie’s have experienced!

I tend to be in agreement re: 'training' programs or certifications - I just found that when I was using this site as my own professional VA site I rec'd *many* inquiries from people wanting to be VA's and almost all of them asked me which program I'd used. The answer of course was 'None of them.' but I was just curious if anyone else had taken the time or spent the money to give one of the many options marketed toward VA's a try.

I will disagree though, that working in upper level admin is a true necessity or expectation of VA's. While I think that many professional admins who did work as assistants for years in the corporate world have many skills and perspectives that perhaps I wouldn't (as someone who didn't work in the corporate world) I think that being in-tune with technology (ie - internet savvy, aware of new online technologies and their potential uses, being intelligent and a quick thinker/learner, being able to research a solution [when perhaps the material/problem/industry is new to you, and being personable/approachable are equally important.

I literally 'fell' into being a VA (it's a long story so I'll spare you the details ) but the position just found me at the right time in my life and has manifested from that first part time client into a fully grown successful business with a waiting list for many services to boot.
I didn't have any specific office-related experience or training at all - just a willingness and dedication to devote myself to helping my clients solve their problems, better manage their time, and grow their own businesses.

A completely referral-based cache of clients and two-plus years of experience learning and growing with all of them (from scratch!) speaks to the possibility that 'previous admin experience' really *isn't* something people are necessarily looking for either - just as they aren't necessarily looking for certification.

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Originally Posted by VACOC

Honestly, most of them are just money-making vehicles for the sellers. Your money would be better spent having your skills assessed by BrainBench.com or similar. The best "certification" you can have is extensive real-world experience working in upper level administrative capacities. That's where all VAs get their "certification" from, and it's what we expect newcomers to have as well.

Agreed on the first point but I beg to differ on the second. It makes it sound like the only way a person can function successfully as a VA is to have worked as an assistant to someone in a non-virtual office for ages, which just isn't true.
There is a whole generation of VAs emerging (I like to think of myself as one of them) with skills and talent in a creative field like web or print design and coding or programming with the wits to negotiate the rest of the document handling, phone call answering, office-type project management as well.
Many of us are totally self taught, just like a few key posters here on the forum. There are empires being built out of a single idea - it's innovation and energy that attracts clients, to be sure. I don't think they care so much how you get it done or even how you learned what you need to know to get it done as long as it gets done, done well, done on time, and done with that competetive edge (financially, emotionally, whatever it is that appeals to your client as an individual).

I'm willing to bet that my own experience just in terms of how I understand, work with and neogiate the internet (let alone my skills as a programmer and designer) garners me a bit ahead of someone who has lots of experience filing someone else's paperwork.

There are so many really good virtual assistants out there who like me and Virtual Administration just got started out of serendipity, or being in the right place at the right time (usually an online location at that) and from there grows something new and successful.
Let's not put off all the newbies who have so much to offer as VA's by telling them right off the bat they're expected to have a certain number of years in 'the field' to get started!

In this day and age there are no real rules about anything anymore - the internet allows anyone and everyone with the intelligence to figure it out the ability to invent and reinvent their business persona a thousand times over.

In my experience, clients want forward thinking minds who are not only 'outside the box' but were never IN that box to begin with.

That's all well and good, but we aren't talking about the same things.

Web design is web design. That's not Virtual Assistance.

Virtual Assistance is the profession of administrative experts. Web design is the profession of web designers. Bookkeeping is the profession of bookkeeping. Print design is the profession of graphic design.

These are all entirely individual fields in and of themselves. And I beg to differ, you can't simply roll out of bed one day and decide you've got the skills, knowledge, background and training to be any of those things.

Well, you could. But that doesn't mean someone like that is going to do well. Or make clients happy. Many people find this out the hard way, on both sides.

Interesting conversation going here - it sounds like maybe we're getting stuck on semantics though, because in my mind if you provide virtual support services that encompass the needs of any other growing business (at least in my case as I prefer to work with small businesses) then you're 'in the field' so to speak.
I provide both 'office' related services (admin, if you will) *and* web design/programming related services. Now, because a client can send me both a request for a new press kit in PDF or a researched presentation on Monday *and* a project updating their website on Tuesday I'm functioning (as far as I'm concerned) as a VA, with web skills to boot.

My client is happy - she's got her beautiful new press kit *and* her professionally updated website all in the same week. I save her time and money because she doesn't have to use two service providers to get these things done.
The questions I hear coming out of this conversation above are: Am I less of a VA because I provide web products? Am I less of a VA because I didn't work in an office previously?

VACOC - I think what virtua is saying is that the 'definition' of a VA is (and necessarily *must* be) a flexible one, particularly in this fast-paced, high tech, online business world we're living in/creating for ourselves.
I think the rub comes when established VA's who may come from the 'old school' club of having functioned as sec's to CEO's etc. want to establish that the industry 'belongs' to that generation, when in fact it is morphing every day as more and more individuals with niched skills in areas closely related to web development, etc. enter the virtual administration arena.

It seems sort of defeatist to want to put a fence around what a VA is, can do, or should have by way of credentials or experience. Our field is exciting *because* it is wide open to interpretation (that's precisely *why* so many niched VA's are doing so well!!!)

I actually *did* 'roll out of bed one day' and decide to create an income for myself that would allow me to remain in the foreign country where I met my husband (he was a student I was a long-term traveller to that country on a ten year visa). Because we were both in a foreign country (I'm from U.S. he's from Iran) and neither of us could imagine finding actual jobs inside the country we met in that would pay anywhere near what we were worth based on our respective university educations, I went online and found a client in New York and immediately began handling all of her administrative needs. I've never looked back, nor has my client (and the endless list of referrals that came out of that) ever once batted an eye at my glaring lack of office experience - because I *deliver*.

Two years later and we've got our own established company - a full roster of VA clients who *also* rely on us for exceptional web development services...
Now, that's not to say it's as simple as slapping up a website stating that you're a VA and all will be well or right with the world - but I do agree with virtua that in this 'day and age' invention and ingenuity are what makes the virtual world go round, and however you're able to broach/approach that isnt really the issue - whether your skills and knowledge came from real-life-office experience or intuition and the ability to adapt to an ever changing tech-environment. As long as you're able to deliver viable solutions to your client's problems and needs and function in an all-around support role then you should feel comfortable marketing yourself as a VA.

In the long run there are always going to be those who do simply roll out of bed and decide to be a VA but *can't* deliver the product, service, or results that will satisfy a client - and they won't last long. But everyone has to start somewhere and I applaud those who do see the opportunity and are able to make something of it.

Virtua (if I may take a guess ) seems a bit put off by this notion that being a VA is somehow reserved to the 'old girls' club' (to reference the other, more patriarchal, 'old' boys' club and it's glass ceilings, etc.).

In any case, being a VA ultimately is about what you make of it - if you present yourself as a virtual assistant but don't have what it takes to find and keep clients then clearly you're not VA material. But it doesn't seem to me that being a successful VA is mutually exclusive to having worked in an admin position - as wonderful as that experience must be

Just my two cents - and hopefully a bit of perspective on something that I can see many of us take very seriously...which is great!

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