I am a Nurse by profession. I graduated in year 2007 of Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Saint Mary’s College of Tagum City, Philippines. Took and passed the board exam in 2008. But, like so many others in my country, I work in an entirely different environment than what my license suggests.
About a month or two after I took the licensure exam, while waiting for the results, I applied at a call center an hour away from my hometown. I got hired as a technical support representative for a big telecom company based in the US. After only 2 or 3 months, I decided to resign because I wanted to apply at a different call center, this time, based in my hometown. I got accepted as a sales representative. I worked for the same telecom company, but this time, my job description was all too different.
After several months, I was reassigned to a different account. From an initial team of 5 people, we grew to 15. A year in and the center ran into a few roadblocks. There was a problem with our ISP, having only one available option and they weren’t providing the best service. They could not handle a call center’s internet speed requirement and the problem persisted which eventually dissolved most teams, leaving only the original 5. Added to the still problematic ISP issue, the top rep of our client had a medical problem which lead to her resignation and that pretty much lead to the failure of their team and ultimately ended entire the campaign.
So there I was, jobless and thinking whether I should start using my license. I paid for a 6-month long training at a local hospital but just as I was about to start, someone contacted me directly to work as an appointment setter for a US-based client. I decided to forfeit my training and went for the job.
My first client set up an Odesk (now Upwork) profile for me and got me started. After the campaign, I decided I’d create my own profile and apply for a job. I had a good start, landing a job shortly after I created my account. This was also the time when taking a 5-item Odesk-readiness test was the only requirement to create one. I also found clients in different platforms, such as craigslist, etc. I’ve had the chance to use CRM’s, autodialers and several other tools as a VA and maybe I’ll discuss more details of that in my next blog.
And this was how my home-based career as a Virtual assistant started.
If you have questions or need help, send me a message and maybe we can help each other out.
Thanks for reading and watch out for my next blog!
Jennefer Cahilog, virtual assistant 