Virtual Assistant Resume: Complete Examples [+Pro Tips]

To communicate you have what it takes to become a virtual assistant, you need a professional virtual assistant resume.

Is it that important?

As this is a remote position, recruiters receive hundreds of resumes for a well-paid virtual assistant jobs from around the world – the right job will give you the flexibility of working from anywhere in the world.

Your resume needs to be impressive from its look to its content if you want to stand out. This article has everything you need to land a well-paid virtual assistant job.

Including:

• Complete virtual assistant resume examples and templates
• A guide to picking the right format and layout to create your resume
• Examples to write each section of your VA resume
• Pro Tips to make your application stand out

If you’ve already found the perfect job, don’t wait till the last moment – use one of our ready-to-fill resume templates to create your resume in less than 10 minutes.

Here’re some more illustrations of similar articles that you could refer to get inspiration from👇

• Secretary resume
• Administrative assistant resume
• Data entry resume
• Office assistant resume
• Sales assistant resume
• Customer service resume
• Administrative coordinator
• And more

Plan Your Work – Work Your Plan

As a VA, your work should be well-organized and the recruiter will judge you based on your application.

Though your major is not in HR, they will expect you to have an understanding of modern resume writing – you’ll get to shortlist and recruit people as part of your job. Therefore, your resume itself is demonstrating your skills. You can’t compromise its quality whatsoever.

Modern resume writing starts with a little bit of planning. This simplifies the process of writing and reading the resume.

You’ll realize this is the same way you manage complex administration work of CEOs – plan the work – work the plan.

In resume writing, we should define the layout of our resume followed by the format. Then we should pick the right template.

Virtual Assistant Resume Layout

The resume layout is a list of sections and subsections that we’re going to write on the resume. Having defined the layout first makes it easy for us to prepare the information – also, we don’t miss any important information.

For a virtual assistant resume, we recommend the following layout:

• Header: name and contact information.
• Professional summary.
• Work Experience.
• Freelance experience.
• Education.
• Skills.
• Additional sections (certificates, languages, and interests).

The Right Resume format for Virtual Assistants

The format of a resume defines the order in which you put together the information in each section. Simply put, you could write the information from their importance or you could order them based on the years.

There’re 3 standard resume formats in use:

• The functional (skill-based) format: In your experience section, you should list your key skills and provide examples where you demonstrated those in your work – mostly suited for freelance and project-based work.
• Reverse chronological order (traditional) format: Here you should list your most recent experience first – list the rest of the experience based on the years.
• Combination format: This is a combination of the above two formats.

For a virtual assistant resume, we recommend you to use the reverse chronological resume format. However, if you have freelance or project-based experience, you could use a combination format.

Remember, the one who read your resume is a busy person and that’s why they’re looking for someone like you – don’t waste their time – make the important information readily available for them to decide on your application. A good layout and a format help that too.

A Killer VA Resume Template

As a VA, you might have worked on many document templates for multiple clients – a resume template does the same purpose – it defines the general appearance of your resume.

The significance of this is that it creates the first impression for the hiring managers.

If you’re one of the pro users of MSOffice, you could create your own template without hassle. However, we have created plenty of professional resume templates suitable for virtual assistants, administrative assistants, and secretaries. You could check them out here.

A great resume template should:

• Have a color theme that matches the personality of the candidate.
• Have consistent fonts, font colors, and sizes for headings, subheadings, and texts.
• Have consistent margins from all sides.
• Be able to fit more information on the resume while maintaining clarity.

Start Your Virtual Assistant Resume with the Header

Your VA resume should start with the header. A resume header consists of the applicant's name and contact information. This is the first part of your resume the hiring manager reads. In fact, they only read your name.

Most VA candidates get this section right – with a few exceptions that we have mentioned👇

A good & a bad header

CORRECT

Tim Ambrose

Virtual assistant

timamb@gmail.com

(234)456-2784

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mluther

INCORRECT

Tim Ambrose

Virtual Assistant

timambrose@synergy.com

(234)456-2784

11, main street, apt 407,

Washington DC,

USA

A good and a bad resume header is subjective – we define a good header as one that tells the hiring manager who you are and how to contact you. Any header that doesn’t serve this purpose is a bad header.

• Make your name bigger than all other texts.
• Put the right job title as in the job advertisement.
• Put your personal email address and mobile number.
• Include a link to your LinkedIn profile if that’s where you’re professionally active.
• Do not include your physical address.

Hook the Reader with an Outstanding Professional Summary

Do the elevator test!

If you met the potential employer in an elevator where you have 30 seconds to describe yourself, what would be the two sentences you would use – that’s basically your professional summary.

As that 30 seconds on the elevator could lead to an hour-long meeting, the right resume summary would hook the reader to read it in full and call you for a meeting.

A professional summary should consist of about 2 short sentences: where the first sentence describes your experience, key skills, and the passion to join the new team and the second sentence should explain how you excelled in your previous work.

Entry-level candidates could consider writing a virtual assistant resume objective highlighting your enthusiasm for joining the company as a VA.

Here’re a few tips to write a great professional summary:

• Answer the dominant questions of the employer. Most CEOs need to free up their time from less value-adding activities. Tell them how you did it.
• Use numbers to add credibility.
• Add relevant keywords.

Example professional summary

CORRECT

A passionate virtual assistant with over 6 years of experience in administrative and organizational support seeks to join The Synergy Tech to provide exceptional customer service. In my previous job as a VA handled multiple clients for a B2B tech company creating the link between all customer-facing departments – generating over $200,000 in annual sales.

INCORRECT

A passionate candidate with 5 years of experience in administrative support seeks a virtual assistant position

Example objective summary

CORRECT

An aspiring virtual assistant with experience in providing high quality customer service for technology-based products seeks to join AMD Technologies to assist the management in daily administrative and client handling tasks saving them more time for strategic business functions.

INCORRECT

A dedicated candidate who previously worked as a customer relationship executive in an ERP company seeks to become a virtual assistant in a reputed company.

Demonstrate Your Virtual Assistant Experience

CEOs don’t have time to teach you how to do your job – they’re looking for candidates who can work with minimum guidance. Therefore, whether you’ve worked as a virtual assistant or not, you should write an extensive work experience section on the RELEVANT experience.

We’ve given you two examples of experienced and entry-level virtual assistants.

Let’s say you don’t possess any virtual assistant experience – still, you can apply for VA jobs.

How?

Working as a virtual assistant is a comparatively new progression in the job market. Previously, CEOs hired secretaries, administrative assistants, and personal assistants (PA) to support their work. If you’ve worked in any of these positions or happened to work in administration, you could turn that into a killer experience section. Refer to our examples and use a similar writing style.

Experience Section for a Pro VA

INCORRECT

Aug 2019 to Present

Intel Vision

Virtual assistant

• Carried out calendar management for the CEO
• Booked travel tickets and scheduled meetings
• Worked with other staff to meet deadlines
• Communicated with partners, clients, and suppliers

CORRECT

Aug 2019 to Present

Intel Vision

Virtual Assistant

• Booked travel and accommodation for the management for travels in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East – managed an annual budget of $120,000
• Managed CEO’s calendar scheduling meetings with staff and shareholders
• Worked as the VA to the CFO for 6 months until a full-time VA was assigned to her – I was praised for time management
• Introduced a Saas CRM system for inbound marketing which from the CEO’s words “revolutionized” the work in marketing, sales, and services

Most experienced virtual assistants get to work with C-level executives in different size companies. These CEOs delegate most of their team management and administrative tasks to the VAs.

Therefore, focus on demonstrating your leadership, team management, and delegation skills more often in your experience section.

Experience Section for an Entry-level VA

INCORRECT

Aug 2021 to Present

Ktech

Virtual assistant

• Hired freelance designers and developers
• Paid freelancers monthly
• Helped the CEO to free up his time
• Involved in content management on the website

CORRECT

Aug 2021 to Present

Ktech

Virtual assistant

• Worked with the founder and CEO in developing a content strategy for the brand and planned on execution
• Maintained communication with over 15 freelance designers and developers in creating website content and developments
• Advertised, shortlisted, and hired over 10 freelancers – scheduled final interviews with the CEO
• Helped the CEO to free up his time on administrative functions and focus on strategic growth – 35% monthly time saving

Most entry-level virtual assistants are hired by solopreneurs. The work you’ll get would be more technical such as managing CMS platforms, sending emails, and managing social media platforms could be part of your work. You’ll also get to hire and work with other freelancers.

In such incidents, you should focus your experience around skills such as team building, recruitment, and other relevant technical skills.

Does Your Freelance Experience Make a Difference?

There’s no doubt that most VAs are freelancers – some of their work lasts a couple of weeks or months. Can you include them on your resume?

Of course! Freelance experience demonstrates your ability to handle multiple projects at the same time. Also, freelancers are typically exposed to different industries and niches making them invaluable to VA positions.

Here’s how to list your freelance experience:

CORRECT

Aero Mac Solutions (startup)

The virtual assistant to the CEO Founder, 2019-2020 (4 months)

• Carried out the total recruitment process- hired 6 freelancers and 2 full-time developers.
• Assisted CEO in scheduling meetings with potential investors and partners – received $2M seed funding after rounds of meetings.
• Setup the tools and systems required for cross-team communication.

Eiden Tech

Virtual assistant, 2020 (2 months)

• Developed the company’s social media content plan for the next 6 months.
• Worked with the content team to conceptualize content ideas and coordinated from writing drafts to publishing.
• Created analytics reports for the management decisions.

Your Academic Background Matters

Your academic background matters to a remote job more than it matters to a physical job.

Why?

Because that’s a legit way for the recruiter to know you’re smart and you have the qualifications. A bachelor’s degree or a Master’s qualification would be ideal.

Some virtual assistant job descriptions highlight the type of academic qualifications they expect from the candidates – even if they don’t, you should include them in a separate section on the resume.

Start the education section with your highest qualification – use a consistent format highlighting the type of degree, institution, years of graduation, and any other relevant information.

Education

The Most In-Demand Skills for Virtual Assistants

We know you could easily write a list on a full page with your virtual assistant skills – that’s how many skills you should possess to become a productive VA.

However, each job is different – the requirements of each CEO are different. If your resume does not address the right virtual assistant skills required to perform the particular job you’re applying for, your resume falls into the same 95% of resumes that goes to virtual trash.

There’re two types of skills a virtual assistant should put on their resume:

Your resume skills section should have 4 to 6 key skills required for the job. Identify the right skills by reading the job advertisement – focus on the type of skills the recruiter expects from an ideal candidate and be that candidate.

Soft Skills for Virtual Assistants

• Teamwork
• Multitasking
• Communication skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Reliability & resourcefulness
• Leadership skills
• Accountability
• Analytical skills
• Critical thinking
• Attention to detail
• Time management
• Presentation skills
• Organizational skills
• Problem-solving

Hard Skills and Tools for Virtual Assistants

• Project management
• Editing & proofreading articles and legal documents
• Microsoft Office Suite
• Data entry
• Typing speed (wpm)
• Experience in CRMs
• Business planning
• Performing market research
• Event planning
• Social media accounts management
• Transcription services
• Adobe creative suite
• Zoom, Microsoft team, Google Meets, and similar communication software
• Slack, Airtable
• WordPress Content Management
• Google documents

Additional sections for Virtual Assistant Resumes

We’re writing a virtual assistant resume that is better than 95% of the other CVs.

How do we do that?

By including key information that most candidates ignore.

One way is to put a couple of small additional sections to make the hiring manager confident about their decision of shortlisting your resume.

Why small sections when we could include this information under the main sections?

• Small sections easily catch the hiring manager's eye.
• You could include a range of information under different headings.

Therefore, pick the right additional sections for your VA resume to make it stand out.

Here’re some example sections:

• Computer skills & certifications
• Extracurricular activities
• Freelance work
• Languages
• Interests

Computing Skills & Certifications

It’s now easier than ever to get certified with globally recognized qualifications.

Both career-specific certificates and IT skill certificates would add value to your profile as a VA.

Most certifications are free and you can complete them online. Here’re some powerful certifications you should consider including in your resume:

• Microsoft Office Specialist Certification (MOS)
• Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) by the Project Management Institute
• HR Certified Professional by The International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR)
• Talent Management Practitioner Certificate by the Talent Management Institute
• Hubspot Content Marketing Certification
• Google Analytics IQ Certification
• Google Digital Garage: Fundamental of Digital Marketing
• Hootsuite Social Marketing Certification
• Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification

Check out our complete guide to list certifications on your resume with tons of examples for different professions here.

Languages

Your language proficiency would be something of interest to the hiring manager. For example, if you are fluent in both English and German, you would have a better chance of getting a job as a VA to a German-speaking manager. Of course, you could demand higher pay.

Your language skills could be nicely presented on your resume with one of our resume templates.

State the level of fluency in each language for the recruiter to have a clear idea.

CORRECT

Languages

English Native

Japanese Full working proficiency

French Limited working proficiency

INCORRECT

Languages

English

Chinese

German

Interests

Before writing your interests section, go through the website of the company you apply for – check what are their values, beliefs, and purpose – some companies have strictly defined the type of employees they’re hiring and this applies to freelancers as well.

For example, some companies promote remote work and hire people who work from different destinations in the world while traveling – some companies hire people who believe that the future is Metaverse and crypto.

If you have the same interests your potential employer values the most, your interests section could get you the job.

Tips to Improve Your Virtual Assistant Resume

Apart from the tips we shared throughout the article, here’re some final notes to stand out:

• Proofread your resume before sending it through – use a tool like Grammarly to check accuracy.
• If you don’t have the experience they’re looking for, it’s not your mistake – but if you don’t have the key certifications required, it’s your mistake – so acquire them before applying.
• Tailor your resume to each job – research the company and the industry to see what their ideal candidate would look like – be that candidate.
• Structure your resume sections effectively using a professional resume template with multiple columns.

Key Takeaways: Writing a Winning VA Resume

• Start your VA resume with the header.
• Write a powerful professional summary to hook the reader.
• Your VA experience section is the critical element on your resume – take more time to optimize it.
• Use a consistent format to write your education section – more qualified candidates have more chance of getting high-paid jobs.
• List both soft skills and hard skills – read the ob description to pick what skills to write.
• Use the additional sections such as skills certifications, languages, and interests to create a pleasant surprise for the hiring manager.

Complement Your Resume with a Cover Letter

In most virtual assistant jobs, you’ll be asked to submit a cover letter along with your resume. In some cases, the cover letter is optional – therefore, most candidates skip it. However, if you’re serious about the position, you should write a killer cover letter that should be tailored to the job.

Writing a cover letter is no magic. It would be an extension of your professional summary. Keep your virtual assistant cover letter to about 3 short paragraphs.

In the first paragraph, state the reason why they should hire you – how you could solve the most troubling issues the employer is facing.

In the second paragraph, demonstrate how you solved those problems for your previous clients and employers – give examples with figures.

In the final paragraph, state your interest to join their team – give reasons as to why you’re particularly interested in the company.

When you’re applying for multiple jobs, creating cover letters for each position would be unmanageable. Our resume builder has a cover letter creating functionality in which you could easily create a perfect cover letter with the same template you used for the resume – easy to tailor saving you hours of your time.

FAQ