In the newsletters, we hope to provide you with some interesting information and advice and in this edition we are concentrating on ‘your Virtual Angels profile'.  

We welcome editorials and contributors for the newsletters, please email us for details. 

If you know anyone that would like to advertise their business to over 1400 Angels, predominantly female (sorry guys out there) 20-40 year olds, they can contact us for rates for ads or advertorials.

We hope you find the newsletters informative, we welcome your comments or suggestions for future newsletters.  Click here for our feedback form

Best regards,

The Virtual Angels Team

ps if you know anyone who might like to join the Virtual Angels network, please forward the email to them using the link at the bottom of the newsletter. 

 

NEWS

Support for the W.A.H.M. 

We are finding from our clients that as we explore the idea of working with Virtual Assistants, they struggle with the virtual part. We must continue to educate our clients on the many benefits of the Virtual Assistant and try and change the current mindset.  Angels we need your help to spread the word. 

The profile of many of our Angels are professional work at home mums. What we need to communicate to potential employers is this group of people are a largely untapped resource pool of talent. Working Mum's are smart and flexible and have backgrounds and skills from various professions and industry sectors. High profile accountants, lawyers, executive assistants, project managers to name but a few - all of these women at some point in their career may choose to take some time out to spend with their families and that's when employers can exploit their talent.

Unfortunately, employers and the government do not provide adequate incentives and benefits such as paid maternity leave in Australia (although women continue to campaign for this) but until they do, becoming a Virtual Angel can provide Aussie mums with opportunities - we need our employers to join us in supporting Australian families to continue to enjoy a standard of living by employing work from home mums. Virtual Assistance is also a longer term solution for mums finding it difficult to return to the traditional corporate environment due to high child care fees or lack of child care facilities altogether.

Angels if you get the chance to spread the word to your network of potential clients, both large corporates and SME's remember to point out:

1.      Flexibility and cost effective alternative for employers

• Only pay for hours worked, keep control
• Outsource to  cost effective specialists
• Avoid the hassle of retaining good staff

2.      Promoting Aussie jobs

• Supplying hard working Aussies, including work from home mum's for your business
• Providing work for home based professionals
• Get the job done cost effectively without having to outsource overseas

3.      Technology-working from home-the new era

• Trends in technology ever expanding in home base environment
• Conveniently providing access to quality home based professionals
• Working remotely is a smart option, providing freedom and flexibility
• Home based working environment is a growing and highly popular trend 

 

TIPS

 

Your online Profile (resume)

1. Make sure your profile is completed and activated!  There are a couple of options for activating your resume, but the best option is simply ACTIVE - this means that if anyone visits the site looking for an Angel and they conduct a search, if your criteria fits the search they will see your profile and can then choose to request your full resume.  If you are concerned about people viewing your personal details, don't be.  You retain full control over your resume and only when you have accepted a download request will someone receive your full resume which contains your name and phone number.  Until that point they will only view your employment history, qualifications etc, you will be identified by your resume ID number only.
2. Keep your profile up-to-date.  You can amend it at anytime.  If you change phone numbers/ email address / availability etc, these things should be updated online as soon as possible.  If you become unavailable for any reason, you should change your profile status to inactive.  Also, by regularly updating your profile, your profile will appear higher in the search results (which are sorted by latest updated)
3. We have added a new criteria to the ‘willing to travel' section.  This is to incorporate our new searches for return to work mums who are willing to work at a clients office, but with flexible hours (ie school hours / holidays).  We would like all Angels to log on and re-select their preferred criteria in terms of willingness to travel.
4. Check your emails regularly.  If someone requests your full resume an email will be sent to you direct from the website.  Plus we will generally email you if we have a position to fill and therefore we need to know that you check your emails regularly (at least once a day).
5. Returned Emails:  We do seem to have a lot of emails returned especially from hotmail accounts.  If you do use hotmail you might consider setting up a Google Mail account (http://mail.google.com), Google mail users don't encounter the same ‘mailbox full problems' that hotmail users seem to as they have huge data storage facilities free of charge - you never have to delete an email again!  Remember, if you do change your email address, you will need to amend your online profile.  Another tip if you do use hotmail or Google - think carefully about your email address - what would look more professional to a potential employer - Jsmith@gmail.com or twinkletoes@gmail.com?
6. Check, check and check again - We see so many spelling mistakes on the profiles, but it is impossible for us to contact each person direct.  Just think what impression this would give to a potential employer!  Also, we suggest you use proper grammar and punctuation in your profile - as you would in a traditional Curriculum Vitae.  Utilise the formatting tools that are available when posting your resume details.  For example bullet points.  Plus if you copy text from another document, paste it first into notepad and then copy and paste from notepad into your online resume.  This will stop any glitches happening with formatting which is sometimes carried across from other programmes.
7. Use the Work Preferences ‘Key Skills & Expertise' section of your online profile to really sell yourself.  Don't just write a line or two, put as much information here as possible - it's the first thing a potential employer will see about you.  If you don't sell yourself here, they probably wouldn't bother clicking onto your resume to see the full view.
8. Computer Skills are one of the main things that employers search for, so if you have specific skills make sure you list them and your level of expertise - ie Advanced Word, Excel & PowerPoint.  Intermediate Access.  Do you have experience with Apple Mac, MYOB, ACT, Databases, Programming all this and more, make sure you put it in your profile.   Do not assume that people will know your skills.
9. DO NOT put any personal information into your resume other than where it requests it.  A number of people have listed their names, telephone numbers etc in the body of their profile, which defeats the object of our service.  If someone wanted to employ that person, they wouldn't pay to download the resume from us, they'd contact the person direct.  If we see any personal details in a resume, we will have to suspend the profile until it is amended.  Also, if your own website, you must not list your website name or address in your profile.
10. You do not need to enter the company names of your previous employers nor should you enter any referees or employers personal details.  This would be illegal under the privacy laws.  If we see any of these details listed, we will have to suspend the profile until it has been amended.  

 

COMPETITION

We value your opinion and we know that there will be some great ideas out there, and if Virtual Angels is successful, we all stand to benefit.  So we have decided to put you to the test.  We would like Angels to submit ideas for the following areas (bearing in mind we don't have much of a $ budget):

     1.  Marketing Ideas

     2.  Target Areas - who should we target and why?

Entries should be submitted via the contact form on the website - using the reason: Newsletter Competition Entry.  All winners will be notifed by email and also their names will be published on the website. 

In addition to this, if every Angel emailed our VA flyers out to 5 people (friends, family, business associates) that would be over 5000 people who'd hear about virtual angels.  So imagine, if everyone sent the email out to 10, 20 or even 50 people in their email address book - how the word would spread.  The closing date for these competitions is Friday 31st October 2008.

The prizes 

First prize for the best idea in either of the above categories will be a $200 voucher of your choice - for example - Shopping (David Jones / Myer) or Beauty treatment (Ella Rouge / Ella Bache)

There will also be two runner-up prizes of a $50 voucher of your choice.

Additional prize - the Angel to send the Virtual Angels flyers to the most people between now and 31st October will receive a $100 voucher of their choice.  To be included in this part of the competition, you must blind copy [bcc] vaadmin@virtualangels.com.au on all the emails you send so that we can collate all entries into this part of the competition - we'll need to be able to count the number of recipients on the email and we confirm we will not use any addresses included on the emails, once collated, we will delete all emails).

Click the following links to download the flyers

VA1 - tailored to attracting Angels

VA2 - tailored to attracting Employers