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The process of finding and hiring a new employee can be a lengthy one. But there are few steps that can’t be outsourced, at least in part. Here are 25 HR-related chores — from recruiting to writing job listings to hiring freelancers to creating an internship program — that can help you find a new employee without spending too much time on the process.

1. Gathering references: Double-checking on an applicant’s background doesn’t mean that you have to call every place they’ve ever worked. Sites like LinkedIn bring all their references together in one place.
2. Recruiting: Many staffing agencies will handle the recruiting side of finding a new employee, providing you with a few options to choose between.
3. Finding specialized employees: While the typical staffing agency may not be able to find and evaluate candidates for very specialized position (such as engineering or C-level management), there are recruiters who specialize in finding specific types of employees and who maintain networks in those fields.
4. Testing: When hiring a new employee, it’s important to make sure that their skills are at the level you need them to be. Many staffing agencies will test applicants for you. You also can use an online system like Valtera.
5. Managing a probationary period: Rather than putting a new employee on the books during a probationary period, many temp services will allow you to use them for payroll and insurance for a probationary employee.
6. Drug testing: You can send your prospective employees to a service near where your company is based. Drug Testing USA provides a directory of local services.
7. Vetting home help (babysitters)
8. Managing new employees: Depending on the size of your business (or whether you’re looking to hire help personally), you can outsource managing your employees. For instance, many virtual assistants can manage other virtual help.
9. Sorting through applications: One of the hardest parts of hiring a new employee is to sort through the many applications you’ll receive if you post an ad. Using a virtual assistant or a local service to help you sort through applications can speed up the process significantly.
10. Placing classified ads: Posting jobs on sites like Craigslist can be a lengthy and dull process and if you want to get a wide reach for your ad, there are a lot of sites you should use. A virtual assistant can easily handle the task of posting those job listings, though.
11. Writing job listings: If writing isn’t your strong point, there are many freelance business writers who will handle any communications you have in mind, including crafting job listings that will pass legal as well as interest the right sort of applicants.
12. Collecting applications on an on-going basis: If you routinely need more help — either with a position with high turnover or a position where new applicants are constantly submitting materials — having a virtual assistant process applications and weed out those that you don’t need to bother with can speed things up.
13. Hiring a freelancer: Bringing in a creative freelancer can be a simple process. Sites like GeniusRocket let you sort through a variety of freelancers in a short time.
14. Reviewing portfolios: When you’re working with many creative professionals, the question to hire them is based on portfolios rather than work history. But that means that someone has to look through a whole stack of portfolios to narrow down the pool. Handing that task off to a virtual assistant is easy.
15. Setting up payroll: Hiring an outside company to handle payroll can reduce the paperwork you face significantly, as well as make it easier to get your employees their checks every month.
16. Providing benefits: There are numerous organizations that offer benefits to small businesses, and they generally can even handle all of the paperwork as well.
17. Providing a new employee with access: When you add a new employee, you typically have to set up new passwords and provide him with access to your company’s tools. Even if you don’t have an HR department to handle those steps, you can still hand the project off to a virtual assistant who you trust.
18. Creating an internship program: If you’re interested in bringing a few interns into your organization, contacting a local college or university is an important next step — many will do the hard parts of getting your program set up, as well as helping you find the interns.
19. Negotiating new deals: Some lawyers provide negotiating services to help you and a new employee agree on the terms of the employment contract.
20. Writing employment contracts: Even if you use a boilerplate contract with each of your employees, it’s important to have a lawyer who is knowledgeable about employment law write the original contract.
21. Evaluating the hiring process: It’s not unheard of for an applicant who didn’t get the job to have concerns about discrimination. Having an outside organization specializing in employment law evaluate your hiring process can help you determine if there are any problems that could lead to lawsuits down the road.
22. Conducting background checks: In order to make sure that you’re comfortable trusting a new employee with your business, running a background check can be useful. Private investigation firms typically handle such requests, but you can also use an online service like IntegraScan.
23. Getting clearances: Depending on the type of work you do, your employees may need to have certain levels of clearances. At the most basic level, that means just a very thorough background check and there are many firms that will help you make sure that all of your employees are cleared to work for you.
24. Writing interview questions: There are a number of interview question banks, which will allow you to avoid writing interview questions entirely. One such resource is JobInterviewQuestions.org.
25. Hiring, entirely: There are many companies that have made it possible for you to outsource the entire hiring process. With a professional employer organization (PEO), you can hand off everything to do with hiring to another company. You just have to pick the employee.

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Over the course of the day, you do a lot of communicating — from making phone calls to sending emails, it may seem like all you ever do is communicate. And, for some of you, that’s absolutely the case. However, there are ways to streamline how you communicate by outsourcing different aspects — such as managing contacts, answering phone calls, and clearing your inbox — to the many professionals and tools at your disposal.

1. Managing contacts: There are a number of different tools out there that take address books a step beyond. Gist, for instance, allows you to import your contacts. The tool then goes out and builds a profile on each person in your address book with sources like LinkedIn or Twitter.
2. Processing incoming email: It can take time to sort out spam and other emails that you really don’t need to read from your inbox. A good virtual assistant can clean up your inbox and let you focus on the emails you really need to read.
3. Multiple phone lines: There are a number of tools that bring all your phone calls together in one place, such as Google Voice. You can make sure your phone calls find you no matter where you are.
4. Transcribing voicemails: Another benefit of using an online phone system such as Google Voice is that most can transcribe your voicemails, letting you skip listening to all those messages.
5. Less crucial communications: For communications like setting up meetings, it rarely makes sense for you to spend hours playing phone tag or sending emails about availability. Let a VA handle the sort of communication tasks that don’t require your expertise.
6. Updating contact information: Depending on your contacts, it’s necessary to go through your address book every so often and check to make sure that all of your information is current. It’s a time-consuming project, however, and requires only the ability to send out emails and phone calls — the perfect type of project to delegate.
7. Getting urgent messages: Continuously checking email can make it hard to get any work done, but some times you need to see an email the minute it comes in. AwayFind makes it possible for you to receive a text or notification when specific emails come in, letting you ignore your inbox most of the time.
8. Standard emails: If you routinely get similar emails, setting your VA up with a set of templated responses will let your assistant handle those routine emails and let you focus on more important work.
9. Answering the phone: No matter how big your business is, it’s possible to get a phone system that can answer and direct calls through online services like Phonebooth.
10. Sort your mail: Earth Class Mail will receive, sort and scan your mail so that you don’t have to deal with all the paper.
11. Mailing letters: While you can’t get out of writing a letter to Grandma, there are many tools that allow you to write your letter on your computer and then have it directly printed and mailed without needing to go to the post office.
12. Letters from Santa: If you’ve got a little one at home, a nice holiday treat can be a letter from Santa. There are a number of writers how offer letters from Santa personalized for your child, such as Letters by Santa.
13. Calling home: Many task management systems make it easy to set up recurring tasks, such as phone calls to your parents or other contacts, but a VA can also be helpful in making sure that you keep up with your regular communications commitments.
14. Business letters: It’s not uncommon to need to send out similar business letters on a regular basis. Depending on your business, it can sense to have a professional business writer draft you a template that you can adjust as needed.
15. Help requests: If you’re in a position where you’re routinely asked for help or support, it makes sense to train a VA to handle those requests. Support requests tend to be similar enough that you can train a VA for the most common and then only handle the big problems as necessary.
16. Managing VAs and other help: The number of online project management tools has exploded. Systems like Basecamp can make keeping in touch with the people working on your projects significantly easier.
17. Contact forms: Having a contact form on your website is becoming a requirement. But with all the spam that comes through such forms, responding to inquiries can take a lot more time than you like. Having an assistant sort through such inquiries, handling those that are fairly standard and deleting trash, can free you up to handle the more unusual requests.
18. Automated responses: With Gmail, as well as some other email tools, you can create automatic responses based on subject lines and other email characteristics.
19. Schedule emails: If you don’t want an email to go out until a certain date, you can get the email written when you have time and then use a tool like LetterMeLater to schedule your outgoing emails.
20. Assistance with letters: There are letter writing experts available who will take on just about any sort of project, even writing love letters or letters to break up with a significant other. In many cases, they recommend you use their letters as a template, but it’s definitely a way to speed up the process.
21. Mass mailings: Many marketing firms offer mass mailings assistance, helping you craft the message and then taking responsibility for getting the mailing out to your list.
22. Conference calling: Need to set up a conference call? With a conference bridge, you can let someone else make sure that all the participants can get in easily.
23. Call recording: If you’re making a call through software like Skype, recording it is a matter of adding on another piece of software, like Skype Recorder.
24. Transcription: Got a recording of a telephone conversation or a conference call and need notes out of it? Having a transcriptionist turn it in to a recording you can use can be much easier than trying to sit through the whole conversation over again. Many VAs offer transcription services.
25. Finding new contacts: While social networking sites find it relatively easy to locate interesting people in fields you want to explore, having a VA sit down and identify certain types of contacts can speed up sales calls, as well as many other projects.

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Moving is one of the most stressful experiences you can go through, whether you’re packing up your house or your office. Not only do you have to get everything into boxes, you have to organize the unpacking when you get to your final destination. There’s a saying that three moves are as a good as a fire: things get misplaced or broken, you get stressed out and eventually, you may even wish that some of the items you are moving would catch fire.

1. Finding movers: It’s important to work with reputable movers who will handle your property with car. Rather than calling around and trying to get estimates, there are a variety of review services online that can help you find a mover quickly, such as Yelp.
2. Estimates: Planning your move requires some numbers. You can get an estimate through online calculators. When you actually select a mover, most will want to do a walk-through and provide a more specific estimate.
3. Packing: One of the most time-consuming part of moving is packing — and you have to actually be good at it if you want fragile items to survive the move. Most moving companies will provide someone who will come in and pack your property before the move.
4. Floor plans: To speed up your move, you should have an idea of where everything goes before hand. Software like Floorplanner can help you build a house plan quickly.
5. Minimize office downtime: Moving offices can be particularly difficult, because you may have many employees — each with their own desk, files and personal items to move. Many commercial movers will work with you to create a schedule where a move is completed overnight or over a weekend to minimize the time your office is out of commission.
6. Household inventory: In order to make sure that you have the same stuff you started with when you get to your new location, it’s important to create a household inventory. Rather than trying to write down every serial number and keep track of the information, software like Know Your Stuff makes the process simple.
7. Remodel moves: In order to paint, remodel or otherwise work on a space, you typically have to get all the furniture and other items out of the house or office. That means not only finding a mover, but a place to store your property and then get it back into the building just the way it was before. While not all moving companies will handle such projects, many will. Especially with commercial movers, it can be possible to have them map your office and return furniture to exactly where it came from.
8. Moving supplies: In college, picking up boxes from behind the local grocery store may have been the cheapest option, but a much faster method is to call your mover and ask them to order supplies for you. They can typically estimate the supplies you’ll need, based on your property, and new boxes are guaranteed not to contain anything left over from yesterday’s produce.
9. Storage: There are a variety of storage options beyond hunting down a unit where you can move all of your own stuff in and out. Many moving companies now offer to take care of the problem for you, with pods and trailers. They simply move all of your stuff into a portable storage unit and follow your directions as to how to handle it.
10. Systems furniture: Your office may have cubicles or other specialized furniture that requires a pro to take it apart and reassemble it. Contacting the maker can be the easiest way to find someone to handle your systems furniture for you.
11. Piano moving: Pianos are particularly awkward to move and, considering the price tag on most musical instruments, you don’t want to mess with moving them. However, there are many moving companies who do nothing but move pianos and other odd, heavy objects. Fisher Piano Movers, for instance, will move gun safes and similar items, using specialized equipment for delicate moves.
12. Ordering a truck: If you’re interested in handling the move yourself, it’s still useful to make the process simple. Most companies allow you to request trucks and moving supplies online and it’s set up in such a way for companies like U-Haul that a virtual assistant could easily complete the task.
13. Car shipping: Moving across country? If you’ve already got all of your stuff packed into a truck, why waste time driving your car all that way? Sites like ShipMyVehicle can take care of your car without requiring you to spend hours on the road.
14. Junk removal: After you’re done packing, you’ll likely have some junk not worth moving to the new place. Rather than hauling it to the dump yourself when you’ve already got plenty of moving to do, calling a junk removal service can make the day a lot easier.
15. Donation pickup: If those items that you don’t want to move are still in usable condition, many charitable organizations will make arrangements to pick up donations.
16. Utilities: Turning on and off utilities can be a difficult process. Having someone, like a virtual assistant, who can afford to spend the time on hold to get all the details taken care of can be invaluable. The help is even more useful if you’re on the ground, trying to organize the move and something goes wrong.
17. Change of address: When you move, you need to change your address with anyone who sends you mail. That means filing out paperwork with every company you have an account with, as well as sending out notices, either to friends and family or your own clients and customers. A virtual assistant can handle most of these tasks, leaving you with only those that require your personal approval (like changing the address for your bank accounts).
18. Transfer records: School, medical, legal and even veterinarian records should be transferred if you’re moving to a new city. A virtual assistant can handle contacting each office and making sure records wind up where they need to go.
19. Memberships and subscriptions: Newspaper subscriptions, health club memberships and other contracts need to be transferred or ended. Unfortunately, there isn’t a tool that can handle all your subscriptions and memberships in one go, but a virtual assistant can handle such a task.
20. Cleaning: Especially if you’re moving out of a rental, cleaning out the place your vacating is a necessary task. Many cleaning services offer a deep cleaning option that will make sure your last apartment or office passes inspection when you turn the keys over. It can also make sense to bring in a cleaning service for the new location.
21. Learning a new area: If you’re moving to an entirely new city, learning about it can be a long process. However, most local chambers of commerce offer new resident packets that can help you get acquainted with the area.
22. Finding a rental: Whether you need a new location entirely or you just need a place until your new location is available, there are rental services for both apartments and houses and for offices. They take your needs into consideration and narrow down the field to just a few options.
23. Complaints: If anything goes wrong with your move, getting the moving company you used to resolve the situation can be difficult. One of the easiest options is to take the problem to the local Better Business Bureau and ask them to handle it.
24. Tax deductions: Depending on why you’re moving, you may be able to deduct your expenses on your taxes. Hand your receipts for the move over to your tax preparer, explain the situation and see if you qualify.
25. Insurance: While many insurance companies make moving insurance from one property to another relatively easy, the change in rates makes it a good idea to gather new estimate from a variety of insurance companies. There are a few websites that will compare rates from multiple companies or you can ask a virtual assistant to research your options.

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You need to protect your intellectual property rights, but most people are not familiar with the legal intricacies that such protection can require. Just as it is your best interest to hire a tax professional to help you manage your income and business tax concerns, it is likely in your best interest to retain the services of legal counsel to deal with patent concerns too.

Many lawyers working on intellectual property cases specialize in patent law, from preparing applications to defending existing patents. This can involve everything from software innovations to physical products.

These attorneys can be a great starting point to find help with your patent projects.

1. Paul Hletko
   Website: cardinallawgroup.com
   Specialties: Startups
2. Ian Blum
   Website: cplplaw.com
   Specialties: Patent Applications and Enforcement of Patent Rights
3. Adam LK Philipp
   Website: axioslaw.com
   Specialties: Software
4. Judith Szepsi
   Website: bstz.com
   Specialties: Software, Hardware, Telecommunications and Security
5. Michael Neustel
   Website: neustel.com
   Specialties: Electronics
6. Cole Stuart
   Website: lexevia.com
   Specialties: Software
7. Marc Misthal
   Website: grr.com
   Specialties: Internet
8. Barry Lewin
   Website: grr.com
   Specialties: Consumer Goods
9. Christine Thompson
   Website: hctlaw.com
   Specialties: High Tech
10. Brittany J. Maxey
    Website: maxeyiplaw.com
    Specialties: Biological and Mechanical
11. Robert Gorman
    Website: gormanlawoffices.com
    Specialties: Startups
12. Brian Teague
    Website: ip-counsel.net
    Specialties: Electrical, Electronics and Computers
13. Tina Loza
    Website: lozaip.com
    Specialties: Biological

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Whether you’re thinking about going back to school or you’ve got a child looking at colleges, a lot of the process can be outsourced. From saving for school to getting school supplies, you can make sure that you start every school year off right.

Of course, there are some parts of an educations you shouldn’t outsource, like writing those all-important term papers, but handling the little details like college applications can make it easier to focus on actually learning.

1. Saving for College: Each state offers at least one 529 College Savings Plan which allows you to automate the college savings process, including automatic withdrawals and investments.
2. Test Preparation: For each of the major tests that go along with both undergraduate and graduate admissions processes, you can get help with studying. Companies like Kaplan and Princeton Review offer on-going classes at all levels, as well as personalized instruction.
3. College Consulting: Trying to decide how to choose a college and best put together an admissions application? A college consultant can walk you through each step of the process and even take a lot of the work off your plate.
4. Finding a School: If you aren’t sure which schools best meet your needs, there are many college matching tools available that can help you narrow it down by a variety of different criteria.
5. Admissions Packages: In order to turn in the best possible admissions package, you may choose to outsource most of the project to a consultant. While you’ll still need to write certain application materials, like essays, a consultant can edit your work and adapt it to multiple applications.
6. Choosing a Major: While an aptitude test isn’t a guarantee that you’ll wind up in the best major for your interests, it can definitely help. It can simplify the process of choosing a major.
7. Applying for Scholarships: Websites like Fastweb bring together hundreds of thousands of scholarships, allowing you to find those you qualify for with just a simple questionnaire.
8. Admissions Requirements: Need to make sure that you meet the admissions requirements for the schools you’re interested in? College Board offers an academic tracker that allows you to check up on hundreds of schools in one place.
9. Applying for Financial Aid: Beyond scholarships, the main source of financial aid is the government. By completing your FAFSA, you can apply for all the grants, loans and other financial aid offered by the federal government at one time.
10. School Supplies: Many errands services offer you the option of picking up your son or daughter’s school supply list and purchasing the supplies necessary for the upcoming school year.
11. Books: While it’s more expensive than shopping around and buying online, most colleges or universities make it possible to list your courses for the semester online and then pick up all the books necessary at the campus bookstore without having to go looking for anything.
12. Campus Visits: Setting up a campus visit can be a time consuming process, but most schools will offer to have an admissions counselor make all of the arrangements. They can even suggest hotels and travel arrangements if you’re coming in from out of town.
13. Dorm Room Furnishings: Many department stores now offer what amounts to a dorm room kit — it has all the furnishings and decorations that a college student could want.
14. Continuing Education: If you’re looking to go back to school, take a look at any programs your employer may offer. Some companies may already have a program in place that will let you go to a local school with a minimal paperwork.
15. Finding a Job: If you’re looking for a job that will accommodate your studies, you’ve got two options — if you’re eligible for work study, your campus’ work study job will find you a position. Otherwise, check in with the campus career center to find a job.
16. Study Abroad: Interested in going abroad for a semester? Most colleges already have programs in place that will handle everything from finding room and board to arranging for side trips. All you have to do is talk to the study abroad office on campus.
17. Certification Programs: If you don’t need a full degree, but rather a certification, many certification programs offer the proper accreditations without your needing to hunt down individual classes.
18. Getting a Tutor: Working with a tutor on the specific courses you’ll be taking can help, even if you’re already doing well in the class. Most campuses have a system already in place to connect you to the best tutors.
19. Health Care: Depending on the school you’re attending, you may be eligible for insurance and health care simply by filling out an additional form and paying a small fee.
20. Paper Editing: In addition to the help on campus, you can find editors who specialize in academic papers from the undergraduate level through graduate dissertations. Some will even coach you through the full process.
21. Find the Best Professors: Choosing the right classes is easier if you can find out about the professors from students who have already been through the class. Rather than asking all your friends if they’ve taken the class, check Rate My Professors.
22. Get Notes: Missed a class? Use sites like NoteMesh to share notes between classmates so you’re always up to speed.
23. Organizing Research: There are many online tools, such as Evernote, that can make organizing research for your classes easy.
24. Homeschooling: If you’re considering homeschooling, there are both programs you can follow without creating your own, as well as coops that will handle part of the educational process.
25. Care Packages: Is your child away at school? Do you want to send a care package to cheer him or her up? Your child’s school likely offers care packages through the housing and dining department.

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It’s easy to let a quick run to the bank slip to the bottom of your to-do list these days. But not making banking a priority can lead to issues like bounced checks and overdue payments; you may have a deposit to make and just not get around to it in time.

As banking rules are tightening up — and not in the customer’s benefit — it’s important to streamline your banking as much as possible so that you don’t even have to worry about the matter. Automate the process as much as possible by outsourcing.

1. Direct Deposit: If you don’t already have your paycheck going straight to your bank account every pay period, find out what it takes to make the switch now.
2. Automatic Bill Pay: Most banks now offer the ability to set up automatic payments from your bank account on a monthly basis. As long as your bills are consistent from month to month, let the bank handle making them.
3. Pay Bills By Credit Card: If you do have bills that fluctuate from month to month, you can set them up to be automatically paid through your credit card. That leaves you with just one bill you actually have to pay yourself each month.
4. Automate Savings: It can be tough to remember to set money aside every month. If you treat it like another bill, however, and make it an automatic payment, your savings won’t be a matter of remembering.
5. Tracking Your Spending: There are a variety of online applications these days that will analyze your spending and help you determine where you can improve it. Mint is one of the best known services.
6. Make Deposits: If you routinely receive checks, maybe as part of a business, many administrative service providers will handle dropping off your deposit each day.
7. Reconciling Bank Accounts: As long as you have some way of processing your receipts — such as having them digitized by Shoeboxed — a virtual assistant can handle reconciling your accounts.
8. Get Account Alerts: Most banks offer the ability to send alerts to your cell phone based on circumstances you choose. For instance, you can set an alert to let you know when your account drops below a certain balance.
9. Set Savings Goals: Setting savings goals and keeping them are tough. SmartyPig helps with the process, using social networking to help you remain committed to your savings goals.
10. Eliminate Filing: If you notify your bank that you no longer wish to receive paper statements, they’ll send your statements online. That means you can eliminate filing or even opening paper statements.
11. Payroll: If you run your own business, you can outsource the entire payroll process. Payroll processors handle everything from cutting checks to payroll taxes.
12. Send Funds: When you need to send money, you don’t necessarily have to go find your check book yourself. Either transfer the funds online or use your banks online options to have them mail a check.
13. Receive Checks: If you arrange to have a service like Earth Class Mail handle all your incoming mail, you no longer have to worry about receiving checks — the service will find them, and either forward them to you or deposit them, based on your preferences.
14. Purchase CDs: Where you once needed to go into a bank to choose a CD, most banks offer an automatic comparison tool online, as well as the ability to purchase the CD immediately. The same holds true of other savings accounts.
15. Exchange Foreign Currency: Planning a trip abroad? Rather than trying to deal with expensive exchange kiosk when you land, your bank can handle ordering currency for you. Many ATM cards can also be used overseas now.
16. Digitizing Records: If you need to be able to refer to old banking data, it’s much easier if it’s digital. Since that can require typing your data in by hand, it makes sense to work with a temp to handle the project.
17. Save for College: Depending on your bank, you may be able to start an automatic college savings plan for your children. You can set it up to automatically withdraw money from your bank account, ensuring that your child will have access to the funds when he or she is ready to go to college.
18. Get Financial News: Sorting through the many websites, publications and blogs offering financial news is tough. Tip’d aggregates and ranks social news so you don’t have to.
19. Invest Your Money: Some banks now offer customers the ability to automatically deposit money in an investment account and use it to purchase pre-determined shares every month.
20. Roll Over a Retirement Account: There’s plenty of paperwork involved with moving a retirement account. Many banks will handle that paperwork, requiring you to do little more than sign.
21. Find the Best Banks: Finding banks with low fees and good perks can be tough, but online tools like BankFox can compare different accounts for you.
22. Let Your Phone Do It: Most banks offer smartphone apps for mobile banking, including features like the ability to deposit a check just by taking a photo of it, at least in the case of USAA’s iPhone app.
23. Get Customer Service: Rather than fighting your way through your bank’s phone trees, you can get direct phone lines and tips on getting a human on the phone from GetHuman.
24. Create a Budget: Budgets can make keeping your money in the bank easier. Online personal finance apps, such as Mint, can help you create a budget based on your current spending.
25. Updating Your Records: In order to be sure that the bank hasn’t made an error with your deposits or withdrawals, it’s important to keep up to date records. A virtual assistant can keep your records current.

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