College Graduate or Experienced PA?

Saw a post at WebsitePublisher.net about someone who is seeking to use a VA. But the guy has got it wrong – he’s seeking college graduates who just don’t have the required experience he requires. I followed through to his blog and found a post there where his VA has written to him asking if they can take on other work whilst they wait for him to provide them with more work. Come again??? Is his VA an employee or an independent business operator? Why would they have to ask permission to take on more work? And if they are a business owner/operator they could be placing themselves in a difficult position with the tax dept with respect to who should be paying taxes, insurances, etc if the VA has only the one person they are dependent on for their income.

I posted the following at his blog:

Is your VA an employee? I would hope not. Virtual Assistants are independent business owner/operators providing admin and secretarial support to their clients. I’ve been a VA for almost 14 years and do not have just one client, but several. Nor am I expectant or dependent on one client providing me all my work – I don’t sit idle waiting for their work to come to me. I book in work and organise my working week accordingly, and so do all the VAs I know. I manage a team of them in 16 countries.

VAs are NOT college graduates either – they are experienced former PAs and other office workers who have brought their skills back home to work, using today’s technologies. For my own particular clients I provide these services: wordprocessing, formatting of documentation, Powerpoint presentations, data entry and maintenance of database programs, manage/maintain websites and shopping carts, as well as online databases, prepare and send out ezines and broadcast emails, organise bookings for events and much more.

Tell me where/how a college graduate could possibly know how to do these things without the required experience and background?