Virtual Assistant CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a VA with about five years of remote work: an executive assistant role for an estate agency owner, agency work for several small businesses, and office experience before that. The name and clients are made up. Swap in your own tools, volumes and hours.

Most VAs are hired by a founder, a sole trader or a small agency, not an HR department. They read fast, often on a phone, and four things decide whether you get a video call.

• Availability and overlap. Your time zone, the hours you cover, and how many hours a week you can commit. A UK owner wants your hours to overlap with their working day; if you are based abroad, state the overlap with UK hours plainly.
• Tools they already use. If their business runs on Google Workspace, Asana and Xero and your CV lists exactly those, training time drops to almost nothing.
• Proof you handle volume without being watched. Emails per day, diaries managed, orders processed, hours billed per week.
• Trust signals. How long each client kept you, review ratings, confidentiality experience (UK GDPR, NDAs, payments), and a typo-free document. A VA CV with typos is a rejected VA CV.

“A CV is not what gets hired; the person touching my inbox and diary is. So the eye goes to the tools I use, the hours they can give me in my time zone, and how long their last clients kept them. Two years with one client says more than a list of twenty skills.”

Three or four lines under your name: type of VA work and years, tools, one volume number, then hours and time zone. Beginners use a career objective with the same facts minus the years.

Most VA CVs list tasks: "managed emails, scheduled meetings, did data entry." The owner knows what a VA does. Rewrite each task with how much, how fast and in what tool. Six common rewrites:

If you cannot name a number, name the tool and the frequency: "weekly", "daily by 9 a.m.", "every Monday". Rhythm is a number too, and it tells the owner you work to a routine.

Keep the list to 10–14 items with the advert's tools first. Write product names exactly as the owner would ("Google Workspace", not "G Suite"; "Microsoft 365", not "MS Office") because a search for the term is often how you get found.

Core admin skills:

• Inbox management and email triage
• Diary management, appointment setting and travel booking
• Data entry and CRM upkeep (with typing speed and accuracy)
• Invoicing, expense tracking and light bookkeeping
• Customer email and live chat support

Tools owners recognise (list only the ones you have actually used):

• Productivity: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Notion
• Scheduling: Calendly, Acuity, Google Calendar, Outlook
• Projects: Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Monday.com
• Communication: Slack, Zoom, Loom, Microsoft Teams
• Money: QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreeAgent, Stripe, PayPal
• Marketing: Canva, Mailchimp, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), Later, Buffer, Meta Business Suite
• E-commerce and support: Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, Gorgias, Zendesk

Soft skills that get checked (prove them in bullets rather than listing them alone):

• Working unsupervised and reporting on your own (weekly report habit)
• Written English that is clear and quick (response times, client reviews)
• Confidentiality (NDA, UK GDPR, payment details)
• Reliability across time zones (availability percentage, years per client)

This is the most searched version of a VA CV, and almost everyone has done VA work under another name: retail rotas, reception shifts, committee emails, running a relative's online shop. It counts if you describe it with volume and tools.

1. 1Title yourself "Virtual Assistant" under your name; put time zone, weekly hours and internet set-up in the contact line.
2. 2Write a 3-line career objective with facts only: admin work you have done (even unpaid), tools, typing speed, hours.
3. 3Turn past jobs into VA bullets. A cashier "served 150 customers a shift and cashed up the till with no variance"; a receptionist "booked 40 appointments a day in a shared diary."
4. 4Finish two or three free courses and list them: Google Workspace training or Google Digital Garage, HubSpot Academy, QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, Canva Design School. Owners do check.
5. 5Do one real project before you apply: 5–10 free hours for a charity or a friend's business, listed as "Volunteer Virtual Assistant" with numbers.
6. 6Add a skills block with typing speed, Excel or Google Sheets level, and every tool you have used.
7. 7One page, PDF, named "Firstname-Lastname-Virtual-Assistant-CV.pdf".

VA careers rarely look like a neat list of employers. Here is how to present the common situations.

• Several clients at once: one entry titled "Virtual Assistant (freelance)" with the date range, then a bullet per client type ("Estate agency owner, 15 hrs/week, 2023–present"). Name clients only if they agreed.
• Agency placements: list the agency as the employer and the clients as bullets, with the agency's review rating if it is good.
• Upwork, PeoplePerHour, Fiverr or OnlineJobs.ph: put your badge and rating in the contact line ("Upwork Top Rated, 100% job success") and link the profile. Hours billed and contracts completed are good numbers.
• Gaps between clients are normal; "Between contracts: completed QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor, 2024" fills the space honestly. "Executive assistant to a private equity partner (name withheld under NDA)" is fine and reads as a trust signal.
• Portfolio: a one-page PDF or simple site with sample SOPs, a redacted weekly report, a Canva set and two testimonials does more than a long skills list. Link it once in the header.

No licence or certificate is required to work as a virtual assistant in the UK (if you work for yourself, you normally need to register as self-employed with HMRC, but that is tax, not a qualification). A few real, free or cheap credentials help because they name the tools owners use.

• QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor (Intuit): free training and certification; the most useful single line for bookkeeping-flavoured VA work. Xero offers a free advisor certification too.
• HubSpot Academy certifications (Inbound Marketing, Service Hub, Email Marketing): free and widely recognised by small businesses.
• Google Workspace training and Google Digital Garage: free; list the exact course name.
• Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS): paid exams for Word, Excel and Outlook; worth it if your target clients run Microsoft 365.
• Business administration: a Level 3 Diploma in Business Administration or the Level 3 Business Administrator apprenticeship; recognised UK admin qualifications, relevant for executive VA roles.
• UK GDPR and data protection training: expected for medical and HR-related VA work; list the year and provider, and check whether your business needs to pay the ICO data protection fee.

• One page, two at most. A VA with 10 years and 20 clients still fits by grouping clients under one freelance entry.
• Order: header with title, time zone, hours and profile link; personal statement; skills and tools (above experience, because the tool match is checked first); experience; qualifications; education.
• Reverse chronological within each entry, showing how long each client kept you.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no street address. Town or city and time zone are enough. This is the UK convention even if CVs in your home country include a photo.
• One line on your set-up: dedicated workspace, wired internet speed, backup power, dual monitors. Remote adverts often list these as requirements.
• PDF unless the client asks for Word; keep a plain-text version for Upwork, PeoplePerHour and OnlineJobs.ph profile fields.
• Job titles: UK adverts often say "virtual PA" or "remote PA" (personal assistant) as well as virtual assistant. Use the advert's wording in your title line when it fits.

The cvplex freelancer template used above has a single clean column with a prominent skills block and room for a profile link and availability line, which suits owners scanning on a phone.

Staffing agencies screen CVs with software; small business owners search job boards and Upwork with the same words. Either way, the exact terms from the advert need to appear on your page. Check your match with a free ATS checker.

• Titles: virtual assistant, virtual PA, remote PA, executive assistant (remote), remote administrator
• Specialist words: estate agency VA, e-commerce VA, medical virtual assistant, bookkeeping assistant, social media assistant
• Task words: inbox management, diary management, appointment setting, data entry, customer support, invoicing, travel booking
• Tool names spelled as the advert spells them: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Asana, ClickUp, Calendly, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Canva, Shopify, HubSpot
• Availability words: part-time, full-time, UK hours, GMT/BST, freelance, self-employed, contractor