By Peter Ricci

Finding a good virtual assistant can be harder than it initially looks. After all, how can you be confident that a remote employee, someone you may never officially meet, will complete many of your organizational tasks in an efficient and timely manner? Here are some of the top resources out there for finding a superior virtual assistant:

VANetworking.com – A social networking site started in 2003 that currently hosts more than 15,000 members, VA Networking has blogs, training resources and an immense forum (the “General Virtual Assistant Questions” section alone has more than 4,000 topics and 25,000 replies). With some of the industry’s top virtual assistants as members of the site, this is a great spot to shop for the right assistant.

Virtual Staffing Websites – There are plenty of websites that match professionals with qualified virtual assistants. Try AssistantMatch.com, OfficeDetails.com, VirtualAssistants.com, MyVirtualDesk.com, StaffCentrix.com or ResourceNation.com for potential matches.

Twitter/Twellow – It might take a bit of virtual leg work and additional searching, but on Twitter, there were more than 350 million registered users as of June 2011, and according to Twellow, a site that searches for keywords in user bios, about 2,000 of them are virtual assistants in the Chicagoland area. Try searching the term “virtual assistants” on Twellow to find users who are VAs and tweet to them that you are looking for an assistant.

Craigslist – Obviously, Craigslist is a massively popular site (it services 570 cities in 50 countries), and it allows users to post temp- or contract-to-hire job opportunities in either the “Jobs” section, or its “Gigs” section, where users can post opportunities for free. Why not post a job ad or gig for a virtual assistant on the Chicago Craigslist page?