And Why That Approach Delivers Better Results for Businesses
When business leaders start researching virtual assistants, one of the first questions they ask us is some version of: “Are your VAs pre-trained before they start?”
Our answer is no, and we’re upfront about it.
That tends to catch people off guard, especially since “pre-trained virtual assistants” get marketed as a premium feature across the industry. But after years of placing virtual talent, we’ve found that pre-training rarely delivers what businesses actually need. Here’s what’s really going on, and why our approach tends to produce stronger outcomes.
The Problem With Pre-Training
The logic behind pre-trained VAs makes intuitive sense: get them ready before day one, hit the ground running. But there’s a flaw in that thinking. There’s no universal preparation that makes someone ready for your business until they actually understand your business.
Even companies in the same industry operate differently. They use different CRMs, different reporting structures, different communication norms, and rely on different definitions of what “done” looks like. Training someone before they’ve encountered any of that doesn’t create readiness; it creates assumptions. And assumptions, once baked in, are harder to fix than gaps in knowledge.
Generic pre-training tends to focus on platform overviews, broad task categories, and scripted workflows that may or may not map to how you actually operate. In practice, this can slow someone down rather than speed them up. They arrive with habits that don’t fit your environment, and the first few weeks end up being about unlearning as much as learning.
What We Do Instead
MyOutDesk operates more like a professional staffing firm than a training program. When you bring on a full-time employee, you don’t expect them to already know your internal tools, understand your proprietary processes, or hit full productivity without any onboarding. Virtual assistants are no different.
Our job is to find you experienced, vetted professionals who are capable of coming up to speed quickly. Your job, like with any hire, is onboarding them into your world.
Rather than running VAs through generalized training scripts, we focus on recruiting people with real professional backgrounds. That means prior industry experience, transferable skills, and the kind of judgment that doesn’t come from a training module. Many of our virtual assistants have worked in real estate support, finance and accounting, healthcare administration, e-commerce, customer service, and marketing. They already know how to work. They just need to learn how you work.
Onboarding Isn’t a Weakness
We’ve noticed that some businesses treat onboarding as a sign that a VA wasn’t ready. We’d argue the opposite: the companies that see the best results are the ones that take onboarding seriously. They share their systems early, document their repeatable processes, and give feedback in the first few weeks rather than waiting to see if things click on their own.
That kind of onboarding, clear and intentional and collaborative, is what actually produces consistent performance over time. Skipping it doesn’t accelerate results; it just delays the point where things start working well.
There’s also a less obvious risk on the other side of this. Heavily pre-trained VAs sometimes arrive with someone else’s logic already embedded. They follow scripts when the situation calls for judgment. They assume familiarity where they should be asking questions. Adaptability, in our experience, is worth more than memorization, especially in fast-moving business environments where processes change, and priorities shift.
What We Do Guarantee
We don’t pre-train virtual assistants for your specific business, because we can’t. No one can, before the relationship starts. What we do guarantee is professionally vetted talent with relevant experience, strong communication skills, and the reliability and accountability that make a long-term working relationship possible. We stay involved as a partner throughout, not just during placement.
The Bottom Line
Pre-trained virtual assistants sound like a shortcut, but in practice, they often create more friction than they eliminate. We’d rather send you someone with genuine experience and the flexibility to adapt than someone loaded with assumptions about how your business should run. That’s the model, and it’s the reason our clients tend to see stronger integration and more durable results over time.
If you’re looking for a virtual assistant who can think, adapt, and grow with your organization, that’s exactly what this approach is built for.
If you’re evaluating virtual assistant support and want guidance tailored to your business, schedule a consultation with our team.
