Engaging services of virtual personal assistants would have been looked down upon around a decade or so back by the conservative Human Resources experts. However, times have changed now and the global recession has definitely taught a thing or two to every organization around the globe. The biggest learnings have been to stay lean, mean and fighting fit at all costs and survive in this era of global interdependence by not just tried and tested methods of employee hiring but also by exploring unconventional methods which are beneficial to the organization at large.

I've had the experience of working with virtual personal assistants for my organizational requirements and I will vouch for a fact that hiring the services of VA has in no way been a bad decision for me. Now let me share and explore with the case example of virtual assistants hired through a reputed agency and see what benefits they bring to an organization.

Hiring assistants helps the organization with costs related to the hiring process.
Virtual personal assistants bring with them a knowledge domain expertise as they are being trained by an outside agency specifically for this role.

The organization therefore saves on a lot of money on training overheads.

Organizations are no longer bothered about attrition levels as there are always backups available in the same domain area.

Language barriers are crossed as many of these virtual personal assistants are highly skilled in foreign languages and are adequately equipped to take care of bilingual/multilingual needs of a organization.

The above are only some of the examples that can vote in favor of 'hiring with a difference' e.g. virtual personal assistants. I would conclude in the end by observing anything and everything that relates to cutting costs and accelerating organizational efficiency must be explored and inculcated in to the organizational plans.