Ask HN: Can you recommend a virtual personal assistant agency?

[conflagration]

After reading some articles about virtual personal assistants, I want to ask the community, if they know of any good site to find me an assistant paid on an hourly basis for some research tasks I have to get done(i.e. finding tables of measurement data in a certain format). The tasks are not as simple as ordering food, but on a level low enough, so that they can be done by any half-way intelligent person without any previous knowledge on the topic.

I would really like to source some things out. Can you help me?

Edit: After doing some research, I found oDesk almost fits my needs, they are only missing one key feature: Searching for people speaking other languages than English.

[joshkaufman]

I use TimeSvr.com - wrote a detailed post about them here: http://personalmba.com/delegation-outsourcing-timesvr/

[Brajeshwar]

One of my author wrote a rather nice article with relevant links to services that provides Virtual Assistants. Here is the link to the article

http://brajeshwar.com/2010/virtual-assistants-managing-busin...

I've also heard someone said Indonesian's (from oDesk) are pretty good and easier to interact.

I suggest trying out few with small task and figuring out the best which suits you.

[newyorker]

I know a lady that is a Personal Assistant. Her website is here (be careful the PA link is messed up): http://www.whyorganizingworks.com/services.php

She knows a little of some languages. Which are you looking for?

[eli]

I've heard good things about https://getfriday.com/

[c1sc0]

I've been using them for almost two months now & strongly recommend them. It is worth asking for someone with a technical background and then giving him/her some breathing space to get to know you.

[mseebach]

This is one of the two (IIRC) recommended in 4 hr workweek.

I've just signed up, I'll let you if they're good in a month.

[iworkforthem]

I have been using www.onlinejobs.ph to find VAs. My criteria are; able to speak basic English and not more than USD$5/hr. I does take up quite a while to find the right person, at the end of the day it's worth it.

[bobds]

If you want people that speak a certain language, you could try looking at some translation communities, such as ProZ.com.

http://www.proz.com/

[mike_holland]

I use a virtual assistant service called Rent A Smile http://www.rentasmile.com - they're specially good for research work.

[lorenzsell]

i've been using filcan (http://www.filcancommunications.biz/) for the last three years. they've done everything from data entry to data collection to telephone research for me. they're based in the philippines. pricing is around $6/hour.

[mlevey]

I co-run fancyhands.com - we can help you. Feel free to contact us if you have questions about our service.

[mkuhn]

What about oDesk et al.? There is a huge amount of people offering to work as your personal assistant.

[conflagration]

Thank you for the recommendation. Some of my tasks are language specific, so I would like to find people capable of speaking a certain language.

[paulsingh]

I'm using ContemporaryVa and am very happy with it.

[makmanalp]

Why not use amazon mechanical turk?

[jamesshamenski]

mech turk is best at yes/no questions.