Luis Sanchez, Dean at Sierra College invited us to a lunchtime meeting along with Prof. Cyndi Dunn and Prof. Denise Bushnell from Sierra College, Michelle Ulrich from Virtual Business Marketing and Patricia Beckman from Cybertary.
We all shared information about each of our businesses/occupations discovering how each started and grew their exciting careers in the virtual world.
Luis and Denise were incredibly friendly and very keen to keep in touch. We had previously met with Michelle on an earlier occasion and were glad to learn her thoughts around the growing VA industry especially covering the topic of people with disabilities and illnesses that stopped them getting work in the traditional office setting. Still seen as a huge barrier to employers, they felt that employers were still wary of working with disadvantaged people due to fear of recriminations. When asked about details on current and past students attending the Virtual Office Professional Degree Online course, there was no information available about the number of people who may have had disabilities and what made them choose this particular career path.
Patricia was very interesting to chat with, her company Cybertary offers Virtual Assistant Franchises throughout the USA. It was intriguing to discover her journey taking the business to the next level with a highly successful team of VA’s providing professional hourly rate services to businesses.
It was highlighted that many Chambers of Commerce were still unaware of the Virtual Assistance Industry and there was very little connection with government regards promoting Virtual Assistance as another career option to the unemployed. The VA term is still unheard of within many industries in the US and doesn’t have a recognised title on business listings for internet directories, still recorded under ‘secretarial services’.
There was a definite feel from the colleges and education in the US that qualifications were deemed more important than experience. The higher degree gained the better options on the jobs/career ladder would be open to you. Where as in the UK it seems to be the opposite way round, solid experience in the relevant role is more preferred, with experience of knowing that some employers don't always have time to train a new comer.
Where we will be visiting in the USA
