u/Necessary-Joke-6556

Hi everyone! 😊

I recently landed my first Australian client as a part-time VA, and today was only my 3rd day of onboarding. Overall, they've been kind and patient, and I'm genuinely happy to be working with them.

I'm just trying to understand if this workflow is normal, especially for Australian startups.

For example, today:

• We started around 9:00 AM.
• We discussed priorities, onboarding, workflows, and reviewed an email campaign.
• I waited for them to finish setting up a page/link before I could continue that task.
• While waiting, I checked in to ask if there was anything else I could work on.
• I completed another task they assigned, which involved reviewing cancellation notifications and adding 76 customer emails to a Google Sheet.
• I also spent time troubleshooting an Omnisend import that wasn't working.
• Around 3:30 PM, I asked if it was okay to log off since they had originally mentioned we'd probably work 4–5 hours today.

They replied that we haven't completed the work today? Only 1–1.5 hours of work...

That caught me off guard because I'd been available and working since 9AM, although some of that time involved waiting for instructions or for them to finish creating something before I could continue.

So I wanted to ask more experienced VAs:

• How do you normally count your hours in situations like this?
• Do you count waiting time if you're available and can't move forward until the client provides something?
• Is this fairly common with Australian startup clients?
• Would you track your hours from when you started working, or only the time spent actively completing tasks?

I'm not complaining at all, I genuinely like working with them and I know we're still in onboarding. I just want to understand what's considered normal and make sure I'm tracking my time correctly going forward. Thanks in advance! 😊

So I’ve been exploring alternatives to the usual job boards (OLJ, Upwork, LinkedIn, etc.) and recently came across a platform called Tugma that focuses on matching Filipino professionals with Australian businesses based on work style, communication, and values—not just skills and experience.

What caught my attention is that they only present a few curated candidates to employers instead of having hundreds of applicants competing for the same role.

I’m curious:
• Has anyone here been matched or hired through Tugma?
• How was the application and interview process?
• How does it compare to OnlineJobs.ph or LinkedIn?

Would love to hear experiences from anyone who’s tried it.

Disclosure: I signed up recently and have a referral link if anyone wants to check it out, but I’m mainly interested in hearing real feedback from the community first. TIA! 😊