Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Trial Balloon

I saw a contestant on Jeopardy the other night who worked as a virtual assistant. So...

Does anybody want to hire a virtual assistant?

Skills include superb English skills (oral, written, vocabulary, content, and grammar). Additionally can speak French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Thai. Types more than 130 words per minute.

Also includes master-level knowledge of:
  • Microsoft Word (legal, financial, and contractual document editing and management for many major New York City law firms including Latham Watkins, White and Case, Shearman and Sterling, Proskauer Rose, and others).
  • Microsoft Excel (creation of financial and accounting tables for many major New York City investment banks, including Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Warburg Pincus, Credit Suisse, and others)
  • Microsoft Powerpoint (board room presentations and flip books for many major New York City investment banks including for Merrill Lynch, Blackstone Group, and others).
  • Photoshop and Corel Draw (advertising and graphics for several New York City firms including Ogilvy and Mather as well as most of the investment banks listed above).
Additional skills include website development, HTML with CSS and Javascript, ability to read music and play piano, very solid medical knowledge from a decade of working in the medical industry, a good knowledge of European history, and I used to be a 4 handicap at golf.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

so you were what we call a corporate whore in NYC ;-)

Jil Wrinkle said...

A temp actually.

I was pretty much at the top of the heap of temps in New York City. I was the temp that those big firms called up when they needed somebody to come in quick to help with some all-night emergency, and wouldn't need any supervision from a senior editor.

They all knew that if they called me at 11:45 at night, I'd be there at their midtown offices by midnight, by making edits to some 500 page contract, complicated Powerpoint presentation or spreadsheet, or company logo or diagram, or other document faster than any other person in the city 5 minutes after arriving, and go solid for the next 8 hours, and not make any mistakes.

And I was doing that for 60 or 70 hours per week... with time left over for fun on the weekends of course. (Ah, to be 20-something in New York City again. Well... maybe not.)

Tom N said...

Something to consider: I use a virtual assistant from the Philippines (to do web work, custom Google searches, etc.). The work is supervised by an American living there. The cost is appropriate to who is doing the actual work, but it is not an amount that you would be willing to work for.

I wonder if there is a company in there. While some of the work requires the skills that you possess, much does not.

Jil Wrinkle said...

Tom,

Most certainly, yes: It immediately occured to me that this is an excellent idea for a company. First though, I need to do the job myself, for myself, and by myself. Then I'll think about the possibilities of going large with it.

Anonymous said...

That contestant had an unusual sound when she laughs.