(TheDailyCurrents.com) – Looking for a good side hustle? If you have great communication skills, paired with equally strong organization and time management abilities, you might want to investigate being a virtual assistant.

What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?

Busy people hire virtual assistants instead of personal assistants if their needs are more administrative than tangible – a virtual assistant can’t run by the dry cleaners or pick up a pet from the vet. Broadly speaking, a virtual assistant might help with these tasks:

• Coordinating professional and family schedules and calendars
• Handling emails
• Organizing files
• Manage communications—draft letters and memos, prepare presentations, respond to texts
• Make and manage travel plans
• Handle billing, accounting, and bill paying
• Creating and maintaining the client’s social media profiles
• Research possible projects, partnerships, and clients

What if I Just Want a Side Hustle?

As a virtual assistant, you’re your own boss. You can make it a full-time career, a temporary gig to fill in income over the holidays, or anything in between.

What’s the pay like?

Virtual assistants make pretty good money for a remote admin gig. According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for a full-time assistant was just short of $60,000, or $28.38 per hour. If you don’t need benefits from your job, this could definitely be a career path if you have the right skill set.

But wait, there’s more. Super specialized VAs can make $100 an hour or more. If you have technical online marketing skills, you’re in high demand with businesses that need help managing their websites and social media channels.

What Skills Do I Need?

Aside from the soft skills we mentioned earlier, there are some specific hard skills you need to be considered for a VA gig.

Accounting

Basic bookkeeping skills are important for a virtual assistant. You don’t need to be a CPA, but you should be familiar with software like Quicken or QuickBooks so you can track income and expenses.

Technical

You should be proficient in fundamental computer operations—word processing, spreadsheets, and security. Research skills are a huge plus, especially if your client is relying on your knowledge to conduct professional research (here’s a pro tip—Wikipedia is NOT considered a reliable source!). Part of computer expertise is having solid typing skills—if you still hunt and peck, you should improve your keyboard timing before you find clients—60 words a minute is a good speed.

You’ll also need to be proficient with these time-management tools–Hubstaff, Asana, Trello, and Xero, to name a few—and stay up to date with their respective updates and upgrades.

A good working familiarity with cloud technology is also a key skill for being a successful VA. This means managing data in real time using these file-sharing platforms.

• Google Drive
• Google Docs
• DropBox

Security is a critical component of your computer skills—make sure your computer is as safe as possible from hackers and other bad actors.

If you have experience in graphic web design, include your portfolio with your resume.

Social media

The advertising world that Don Draper created has totally given way to a universe where businesses can micromanage their audience and their message. Virtual assistant are responsible for building and maintaining social media presence and profiles, keeping up with trends, producing content for the blog, and ensuring SEO that aligns with Google’s current algorithms.

Setting up shop

Remote doesn’t mean you can work on your bed. Set up a dedicated work space as your office. You’ll need a high-speed internet connection, a computer with adequate security software, printer/scanner, and possibly a landline. If you’re planning on doing this full time, a second monitor is probably a good idea.

How Do I Get Started?

You may already have these valuable skills and haven’t considered a career as a virtual assistant. Look over your resume, and if you’re lacking in one area or another, you can brush up in those skills on your own, or by taking an online VA course for certification.