Frequently Asked Questions

Free allows you to post a job and see job applications. It gives you a good idea of if you're going to find someone good. You can't see applicants contact info or communicate with them until you upgrade.

There's a good reason we don't offer a free trial.

You can only interview workers once you've paid for an account.

If we let employers contact workers without paying, they start to get scammy then workers respond the same way, and it turns into a cess pool of scams.

Plus, it's how we make money and how we stay in business.

You can look at full profiles and post a job before paying. With the job post you'll get to see all job applications so you can see if people are interested in your position and if they have good skills. You just won't be able to talk with them until you pay.

If you consider our money back guarantee, there's not much risk. If you don't find someone, ask for your money back. We're a US based company.

We honor our guarantee.

We charge up front so we don't have to mark up salaries. Nobody likes middlemen and unnecessary markups. After you try it we think you'll agree.

Very few people who discover OnlineJobs.ph ever go back to the old way of oursourcing (upwork, freelancer, fiverr...).

We offered OnlineJobs.ph at $49 for 8 years without raising it. We felt like the price raise was justified with rising costs.

A lower price increases scammers, increases hiring competition, and increases low quality employers. We want good employers who care about the people they hire.

Plus, it helps us continue to develop the site so you have a great experience hiring.

Easypay!

It's built right in. No account required. Simple and easy.

You could also use Paypal or Worldremit or Wise.com. We don't really care how you pay the people you hire. You don't have to pay them through us.

How much you pay them is dependent on how much you negotiate with them before you hire them.

We've had Filipino workers for 15+ years. We've tried every way to pay. In the end, we didn't really like the options out there because they were slow, took advantage of the workers, jacked up the exchange rate, and added hidden fees.

We created EasyPay to fix all these issues. It's how WE pay OUR workers and they love it.

- Transfers are fast (well, the first time it will take 3-5 days. After that it will take ‹ 48 hours and often ‹ 24 hours)

- It uses the actual exchange rate (a 2% reduction is taken when the money is transferred to the workers bank account. For comparison, Paypal takes 5%-7%)

- There are no hidden fees

- Nobody gets screwed

You can pay your workers right from inside your OnlineJobs.ph account, even after you cancel your subscription. It's always available, and always easy.

Full-time

- Salaries range from $400 - $2000/month for full-time work.

- At $400 you're getting someone with no experience. They can do data entry work.

- Around $700/month is where you'll start to find really competent people. People with a couple years experience, perfect english, knowledge to contribute to your business.

- You can find the cream of the crop above $1000/month.

Part-time

- Salaries for part-time work are about 65% of full-time work. It's not half as much for half the work because it's not considered stable work.

- They can't support their family on part-time work so it's more risky. It's still really affordable for you.

Hourly

- $3-$15/hour.

- At $3 you're getting a complete beginner.

- At $15 you're getting someone who is an expert.

Notes:

How much you pay depends on what you negotiate with them. We don’t dictate salary amounts. Their profile says how much they want to make. It’s not a required amount. You might pay less, you might pay more.

Filipinos usually prefer salaried work. Hourly pay is usually considered temporary in the Philippines, but not always. Hourly usually means turnover, but not always.

You can definitely hire someone hourly.

You can get a good idea from our Comprehensive guide to VA salaries in the Philippines.

We suggest you look at a bunch of profiles which have the skills you're looking for. See how much they're asking for. That will give you a pretty good idea of how much you should pay.

We always recommend paying salaried. Filipinos like it better and we find most employers business success rate increases faster with salaried instead of hourly. We find paying hourly is the equivalent of being a manager and paying a salary is the equivalent of being the CEO.

However, you can do whatever you want. Just be sure to work it out with the worker before you hire them.

Either way, don't try to cheat them. Pay a fair wage.

No, you don't have to keep it. There is no time requirement. No contracts.

When you're done recruiting, you don't have to keep your subscription. You can cancel and still use TimeProof and EasyPay.

Of course...if you're Premium the worker coaching service might be worth it!

How much you pay them is dependent on how much you negotiate with them before you hire them.

Cancelling your subscription is super easy. From your Account Dashboard, simply hover over to the “Account” dropdown.

Select “Billing”, then click “Cancel Subscription”.

Yes. Those are always available to use for free.

Trust is interesting. Anytime something is unfamiliar to us we don't trust it.

And yet, Filipinos (generally) are more trustworthy than people in the US, or in Canada, or the UK, or ...

There's a culture of honesty in the Philippines with foreign bosses. It's different there. You'll see this almost immediately upon hiring someone.

They want to make you happy. They want you to trust them. They want to do great work for you.

It took us over a year before we realized we could trust workers from the Philippines. Today we trust new hires from day 1. After you hire someone you'll probably start noticing little things that let you know you can trust them or not.

Of note... in the Philippines they have the same feeling of distrust that you have. They don't trust you. You’ll need to do things to gain their trust.

Our full treatment about How you trust a Virtual Assistant with your business info.

How do you find and qualify that person you can trust?

When interviewing, ask lots of questions. Do this via email, it's much faster than doing a live interview. You'll quickly see who you can trust and who you can't. Ask about:

- Their experience

- Their previous work

- How they would solve a problem

- Where they live

- Their family

- Their internet speed

- Their computer situation

- ...

You'll see their personality and weed out the bad from the good.

If you ask a lot of questions you'll figure out pretty quickly if you can trust the person you're talking with.

Before hiring someone, have them do a test task. Something small. Something simple for you to ask them to do. Bad apples don't want to jump through hoops.

If you follow good recruiting steps, finding someone you can trust is easy. However, in the end, trust is earned, and they will try to earn your trust.

Different employers do different things. We don't use time tracking. We find it's big-brother like. Filipinos think the same thing. But other employers swear by time tracking.

We made TimeProof to make tracking easy for you if you want to do it.

Whether you use time tracking or not, you'll probably know if someone is being productive or not just based on their output.

We never recommend paying someone based off their tracked hours. It doesn't mix well with the Philippines culture, it's not very fair for the workers, and you're likely to be disappointed with their work. We've seen this a lot.

Well...we think you can...but that doesn't really matter.

We've had hundreds of thousands of employers use the site. We've been around since 2009. We're a USA based company. We're not a fly-by-night outfit.

You can search for reviews and see what others say. You can look at the real results other employers are getting.

In the end, we have a money back guarantee and we honor it.

Credit card data is Visa standards compliant. It's not going to the Philippines.

Feel free to reach out if you have questions.

How do I protect myself and my sensitive information?

There are a number of things you can do.

You should take steps to protect yourself. They're not hard. Don't give a new VA the keys to the kingdom.

I've seen hundreds of thousands of employers hire VAs from the Philippines. Yes, people in your industry. HIPPA laws, SCC regulations, industries with sensitive client information. Yes, people in your industry are hiring VA's to work in their business. I've seen very few cases of theft, and almost every one of them was because an employer tried to get someone to do work and then not pay them for the work.

In the Philippines all employees get a bonus once a year of one months pay - the "13th month".

This bonus is paid in December, but is NOT a Christmas bonus. If you want to give a Christmas bonus, that's separate.

Do you have to pay this? No.

Should you? Yes! Absolutely!

Your workers will expect it. Actually, they need it. It's part of their budgeting for normal life's expenses.

Here's the best explanation of the 13th month, including how to calculate it.

Unfortunately, Filipino VAs have gained this bad reputation due to the actions of a few individuals. In most cases, this doesn’t happen. Filipino online workers are incredibly loyal and reliable.

When it does happen, it's usually because they don't understand something or they're worried that you won't be happy with their work. You can solve it by ensuring you're giving good training and good feedback.

But if you’re still worried about it, here's how to prevent a Filipino VA from disappearing.

The short answer: YES!

We've hired talented programmers, designers, content writers, SEO, people to do lead generation, data entry, make phone calls, customer service...

Paul H. hired an investment banking analyst in the Philippines. "He's a $250,000/year person in the US and we're paying him $1,500/month and he's amazing."

Melissa E. hired a "VA" who has a JD (law degree) in the Philippines. They call her their "litigation paralegal" because she can't legally act as an attorney in the US. She takes all kinds of burden off their attorneys.

People have hired CAD designers, engineers, E-commerce experts, financial planners, realtors (yes, the Philippines has the "Realtor" brand), email marketers, someone to design and send physical mailers... Basically anything that can be done online or on a computer, you can find someone who is talented at it in the Philippines.

The talent you'll find in the Philippines is on par with what you'll find in the USA, but at 1/10 the cost.

We can't guarantee you’ll find someone great (except we do!), but with over 2,000,000 worker profiles, there's a lot of talent in our database.

We rarely find an employer who can't find a good fit for their company. Usually it's the employer who wants someone who can do everything that leaves dissatisfied. That's not you...right?

Plus, we offer a 100% money back guarantee. If you don't find a great fit, just let us know.

No, all workers on the site are individual workers that register their own accounts.

OnlineJobs.ph is an open resume and job posting board. You are communicating, interviewing, hiring and paying the workers directly.

We just provide the means of you two coming together.

(We do have 21 full-time workers from the Philippines who work for and on OnlineJobs.ph)

We’re not CPA’s or attorneys so we’re not qualified in any way to give you tax advice.

You should talk to your accountant or attorney.

But in our experience, the only tax implication is the wages you pay them are a deduction on your taxes. That's it.

You should have them fill out a W-8BEN. It says they're a foreign independent contractor. Keep it for your records.

That's it.

There's no 1099 (they're not in the US). There's no withholding (they're not paying US taxes...they're not in the US). There's no government requirements. There’s no unemployment insurance. There are no required benefits. There's no way to consider them an "employee" in your country. In fact, the Philippine Government prohibits you from considering them an employee unless you have a legal entity in the Philippines, which you don’t. They're an independent contractor. That's the end of it.

The US government has no tax or reporting requirements with the Philippines. Same thing with the governments of Canada, UK, Australia, and every other country we’ve dealt with.

Here's a full treatment on taxes

If you are in the US, you should have them fill out a W-8BEN.

- We don't take a cut of worker salaries

- We don't mark up worker salaries

- We don't get in between your communication with your worker

- We don't force you to pay your workers through us

- Upwork encourages short-term, temporary work. We encourage long-term permanent work. Businesses tend to succeed better without 100% turnover.

Here's more...

All account types can create job posts. Employers on the free account have their job posts go through an approval process. Free accounts can't contact job applicants until they upgrade to a paid plan. Free and Pro accounts are limited to 3 active job posts at a time, Premium can have 10.

If you can't see your job post on the site and you have a free account, its most likely going through the moderation process. Otherwise, its most likely not on the first search page, but a subsequent one. Also, Free job posts expire after 14 days.

Once a week you can edit your job post and have the job post appear towards the top of the search results. You can't "boost" your job.

Each job post has its own reply-to email address that you can set.

You can unsubscribe from receiving job applications from being sent to your email address by clicking the 'unsubscribe' link in your email.

Deactivating or deleting a job post is done on your My Account page.

Yes. But we don't like doing it.

If you don't have time, that's exactly why you need to recruit someone. Recruit someone to do something you're currently doing. You'll get some time back.

The success rate of those who recruit for themselves is much higher than if we recruit for you.

They work from home generally. Sometimes they might work from an Internet cafe.

There are a couple timeframes you might be referring to.

1. There's no timeframe in which you need to keep your OnlineJobs.ph account. You can cancel anytime and still have the person you hired work for you. When you're done recruiting and you've hired your VA, you can cancel your OnlineJobs.ph subscription. Super simple.

2. Timeframes for working with people are 100% up to you. You might hire someone for 40 hours/week and have them work for you forever (we hired our first person in 2005 and he still works 40 hours/week for us today!). You might hire someone for 3 hours one time. That's it. You pay them and you're done. You might hire someone for 4-5 hours/week or 10 hours/week or...whatever you work out with someone. Pay them each week for whatever hours they work. It's up to you.

3. If you do it right, it shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours (total) of your time. I lay out the 7 steps I use at OneVAAway.com. From start to finish, including watching the 7 steps of videos, you should have a great VA hired in under 3 hours of your time.

Most workers are looking for a full-time or a part-time job. However, if they don't have a job they're likely to take any work you're willing to give. This isn't the case for everyone, as some are very experienced and don't need the work. They'll only work under certain conditions. It just all depends on the individual worker and what you're looking for and what you work out with them.

How do timezones work?

From the US, the Philippines is 12-14 hours ahead of us. It's the other side of the world.

From the UK, the Philippines is 8 hours ahead.

You can get someone to work on your timezone (ie. they work 9am-5pm EST). To have success with this, make sure they're already used to it during the hiring process. Don't try to hire someone who is used to working day time hours and then have them convert to working their night time. It's too difficult.

Almost all my VAs work whenever they want. I find my working day overlaps with them at some point during the day. Some of them work late at night so I overlap with them in my morning. Some of them work early in the morning so I overlap with them in my afternoon.

If I want to talk with them, I do it when we overlap. I find they're happier this way.

If you want them to work specific hours that's totally fine. Just specify this when you post your job.