VJ mentioned oDesk as a great place to hire a virtual assistant.

I wonder how this compares to using Amazon Mechanical Turk for oursourced work. This seems like you have more of a one-to-one relationship with people you are hiring - so it's betting for long term relationships - like a virtual employee.

Quoted: oDesk is a global service marketplace for small and medium sized business to hire, manage, and pay remote freelancers or teams. Submit a free job posting and hire from over 25,000 top professionals.