5 Reasons Why We Love Hiring Virtual Staff with No Experience -

5 Reasons Why We Love Hiring Virtual Staff with No Experience

I’ve published an article about VA Platinum’s Golden Standards for Recruitment. I did so, to ensure that my recruitment and operations team are on the same plane when it comes to finding the best staff for clients.

Since then, I’ve been pleased with the quality of prospective staff who make it to client interviews.

It became instrumental in elevating our recruitment process.

I thought about writing a supplemental article, to paint a better picture of the kind of staff we want in our team.

While thinking about how I would approach it, one of our operation team members came up to me reporting that most of the new staff we have onboard came with little or no experience.

It seems a large majority of our people came to us with little or no experience in the jobs they’re currently doing. Yet, they are fulfilling their roles with so much energy and confidence!

It’s surprising how they’ve become great in their roles with just a few months of training.

Because of this, I’ve put together 5 reasons we love staff who don’t have much experience!

1. We want self-starters

Complacency is the biggest block to growth.

For example, there are hundreds of employees who dabble in financial planning.

However, most of them aren’t self-starters. This is true amongst prospective staff who have gained 1+ years of work experience.

Because they have the industry “upper hand”, they try to undermine any basic training foundation.

They overestimate their skills and are often absorbed with what they think they know, and leave a very narrow window for new learning opportunities.

Only a few of them invest in themselves by reflecting on why and how they do their jobs. Most will only learn on an ‘as needed’ basis.

In the past few months, I have interviewed 7 or more prospective staff who approached us after they heard about our employment conditions and the type of clients we have.

They say that they are enticed to join VA Platinum’s stable, dynamic, fun environment after seeing some of their friends grow with us.

However, even when they say that they have completed RG 146, or that they have been doing paraplanning, they still weren’t able to provide satisfactory answers to simple questions such as:

What’s the difference between Indemnity vs. Agreed Income Protection; or

What’s the super co-contribution; or

What does a transition to retirement pension look like?

This is a huge red flag for me.

Yes, you will want someone with some knowledge of the industry. However, you should ultimately prefer working with someone who has zero knowledge but is highly receptive to training.

2. We want staff who approach new challenges with a fresh perspective

We want our staff to learn and grow, both as dynamic people and empowered professionals.

We offer the type of growth that evolves with the clients we work with.

As their business expands, the staff’s roles and responsibilities expand too. The staff plays a bigger role in building their client’s businesses than simply taking charge of administrative tasks.

We daresay that the reason why some tenured applicants don’t make the cut is that they have developed a mindset that they only need to learn and master a few tasks.

The fact is that most offshore companies try to pigeonhole their staff into 1 to 3 core functions.

Using financial planning again as an example, other offshore companies only invest in their staff to learn parts of the RG 146 that relate to their role.

This prevents them from completing the course and ties staff to a limited skillset.

We want our staff to embrace the fact that the opportunities we provide allow for a big window for growth. Staff must be open to many possibilities and eagerly earn their way up.

3. We want staff who are culturally fit

We conduct thorough background checks of all prospective staff before they reach the client interview.

Most want to join VA Platinum because they’re not happy and complain about their current employers. However, their respective employers claim that their performances as employees haven’t been outstanding either.

Their current employers would tell us that these tenured staff have been having issues – citing instances like…

The staff come to work late three times a week between half an hour to an hour without justifiable reason; or

Staff have taken too many days off; or

Staff are underperforming.

I’m not saying that these issues are only applicable to prospective staff with experience. Some brazen probationary staff commit these infractions too.

What happens is that they bring this type of work culture into the company, and when they are reprimanded, they simply shift the blame to the company again.

These types of people are not open to change. They will impose their own culture and think that what works for their previous company, should work for their current company.

They usually don’t have high energy in the office and they might bring the rest of the team down.

They think that jumping into our company will magically change their work behaviour. Believe me, it won’t.

We want to improve people’s lives by being a company that gives them the best incentive and conditions for working. However, we want to prioritise giving opportunities to staff who are truly motivated and eager to be great professionals.

4. We want staff who can prioritise and manage their time effectively

We love staff who pursue further education, but not at the expense of doing their jobs well.

Some prospective staff try to leverage their “experience” to get their way with their demands.

They believe that they can simply bend schedules to their favour, or expect the company to overlook performance and attendance issues because they are busy with exams or school projects.

We support our staff’s initiative to finish their degrees – but this should be a win for everyone.

5. We want staff who are looking for a long-term relationship with us

Some staff with a long list of experience and expertise come to us with the goal of keeping themselves busy before they move overseas.

Moving to Canada, America, or Australia for work is a common thing in the Philippines.

This is a great goal – but I will turn down this sort of applicant because it is not conducive for running our business.

We want staff who will stay and grow with us and their clients. We want staff who are committed to a long-term, meaningful, and professional relationship.

Experience is an attractive trait, but it holds little authority in the way we select our staff.

Looking at our current staff, I can proudly say that most of them with little or no experience are fast learners and are highly motivated.

These are the sort of people you can train and know they’re going to be amazing superstars in your business!